After another incredible season for club and country, Alex Keble looks at whether Rodri is the greatest midfielder in Premier League history and how he compares with other top-flight legends.
“For me, Rodri is the best player in the world,” Spain manager Luis de la Fuente said after his side’s UEFA EURO 2024 victory on Sunday. “Please give him the Ballon d’Or now.”
He has a point. Rodri has capped another sensational season with Manchester City by winning his second international trophy, a feat that has produced a frankly absurd statistic to capture the 28-year-old’s unprecedented 18 months.
Since the beginning of 2023, Rodri has won twice as many trophies (eight) as he has lost football matches (four).
That list of silverware includes pretty much everything it is possible to win: the European Championship, the Champions League, the Premier League (twice), the FIFA Club World Cup, the FA Cup, the European Super Cup, and the Nations League.
As if that wasn’t enough, Rodri also scored the winning goal in the 2023 Champions League final and won player of the tournament, an accolade he also received for his performances at EURO 2024.
The Ballon d’Or is definitely on the cards, then. But looking beyond that, Rodri has a solid case for being hailed as the greatest central midfielder in Premier League history.
Rodri’s Premier League record puts him among the very best
With 172 Premier League matches played, 22 goals scored, and 21 assists, Rodri has established himself as a Man City and Premier League legend.
That is beyond doubt. He might not always attract attention, but his defensive screening and remarkable Sergio Busquets-like dictating of the tempo from the base of midfield adds value like no other.
The most obvious proof is that incredible unbeaten streak: 50 Premier League matches and counting, a record only bettered by Sol Campbell, who went 56 for Arsenal between November 2002 and October 2004.
Looking at the 2023/24 season alone, Rodri is chart-topping in all sorts of metrics that show how vital he is in evading the opposition press, starting moves from the base, and progressing the ball through the thirds.
Rodri's stats 23/24
| Statistic | Total | League rank |
|---|---|---|
| Touches | 3988 | 1st |
| Passes completed | 3365 | 1st |
| Progressive passes | 376 | 1st |
| Passes into final third | 378 | 1st |
| Ball carries | 2513 | 1st |
Clearly, nobody in the Man City team – or anywhere else in the world, for that matter – has the all-action, all-conquering influence of Rodri.
Case in point, in 2023/24 Rodri missed four matches through suspension, three of them in the league. Man City lost all four.
It signals that Rodri, who has won four Premier League titles in a row with Man City, has been the club’s most important player through this record-breaking period in their history.
Rodri's all-time Premier League stats
| Statistic | Total so far |
|---|---|
| Apps. | 172 |
| Goals | 22 |
| Assists | 21 |
| Titles | 4 |
Pep Guardiola has already acknowledged as much: “He’s the best midfielder in the world because he can do everything,” he said earlier this year.
But is he the best in Premier League history? Here’s a look at the other contenders.
Yaya Toure
Appearances: 230, Goals: 62, Assists: 32, League titles: 3
One of the totems of Man City’s breakthrough success in the early 2010s, Man City’s swaggeringly talented Toure is often mischaracterised as a defensive or box-to-box midfielder.
But Toure was in fact a brilliant and irrepressible No 10, at his best driving straight through the opposition midfield before pulling off an outrageous final ball.
Toure was a powerful yet elegant presence in English football, scoring 20 league goals in City’s 2013/14 title-winning season.
Cesc Fabregas
Appearances: 350, Goals: 50, Assists: 111, League titles: 2
There aren’t many Premier League midfielders who defined an era for two different clubs, but after making headlines as a preternaturally talented teenager at Arsenal, Fabregas returned to England to win the title with Chelsea.
For a long time he looked like the missing piece of the puzzle for Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal, emerging just after the club’s best years in the Premier League era. Instead, he completed the jigsaw for Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea, getting 18 assists en route to the 2014/15 crown.
A subtle and creative central midfielder, Fabregas’s laser-focused passing over 16 years in England leaves him third in the all-time assist rankings.
Paul Scholes
Appearances: 499, Goals: 107, Assists: 55, League titles: 11
Sheer longevity alone puts Scholes on this list, and yet this stalwart of Manchester United’s incredible success under Sir Alex Ferguson is often mischaracterised as the graceful, play-switching playmaker we briefly saw when he came out of retirement for the 2012/13 title-winning season.
Before that, Scholes was a box-crashing attacking midfielder far less involved in build-up play whose tenacity and work-rate made him a firm favourite with United supporters - and Ferguson, under whom Scholes won 11 Premier League titles.
Integral to the 1998/99 treble-winning team and the tactical rebirth a decade later when Carlos Queiroz was an assistant manager, Scholes is one of the few Man Utd legends who adapted with the times.
Steven Gerrard
Appearances: 504, Goals: 120, Assists: 92, League titles: 0
He might not have won a Premier League title, coming agonisingly close in 2013/14, but few players are as iconic as Gerrard.
From the long-range screamers to the passion with which he commanded midfield, Gerrard wasn’t just an exceptionally talented footballer but the living embodiment of Liverpool’s romanticism.
His exploits in the Champions League are perhaps more memorable, yet few players can match his 504 appearances – or the sheer heft of that highlights reel.
Frank Lampard
Appearances: 609, Goals: 177, Assists: 102, League titles: 3
The top goalscorer among Premier League midfielders, Lampard’s 147 goals for Chelsea – which includes 10 consecutive seasons in which he scored 10 or more league goals – made him a unique talent.
After joining from West Ham United in 2001, Lampard played a crucial role in the first Mourinho Chelsea team, as well as in subsequent successful title-winning sides including Carlo Ancelotti’s double winners of 2009/2010.
He is by a distance the highest-scoring midfielder in Premier League history, a record it’s hard to imagine ever being broken.
Roy Keane
Appearances: 366, Goals: 39, Assists: 33, League titles: 7
As Man Utd captain through much of the club’s success in the 1990s, Keane - an aggressive defensive destroyer – was Ferguson’s representative on the pitch.
The club owes a lot to his firebrand style, which was crucial in establishing United not just as the most talented team in the country but the hungriest and most disciplined.
A natural leader, for more than 13 years Keane was the engine in midfield who allowed others to flourish.
Kevin De Bruyne
Appearances: 260, Goals: 68, Assists: 112, League titles: 6
The only other midfielder on this list still going strong just happens to be Rodri’s team-mate.
De Bruyne matched the Premier League record for number of assists in a single season with 20 in 2019/20, and is second on the all-time list with 112.
He has contributed countless important goals in his time, but perhaps none more so than his goal and assist off the bench against Newcastle United last season, when he turned a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 lead that, come May, would prove essential in City’s record-breaking fourth successive title.
David Silva
Appearances: 309, Goals: 60, Assists: 93, League titles: 4
Silva, arguably the most gifted playmaker in Premier League history, is widely regarded as Man City’s greatest ever player.
As one of the first signings of the new era, his creativity defined the Man City style under Roberto Mancini and Manuel Pellegrini before he adapted to become a crucial component of the early Guardiola years.
His partnership with De Bruyne was iconic, so much so it’s easy to forget he was just as effective – if not more so – as a creative force alongside Toure years earlier.
Claude Makelele
Appearances: 144, Goals: 2, Assists: 4, League titles: 2
The original midfield anchor, Makelele redefined the role of the defensive midfielder in England when he joined Chelsea in 2003 to such an extent it was named after him.
These days, the "Makelele role" has morphed into something a lot more sophisticated when in possession (Rodri is clearly a more complete player), but the way Makelele tackled, intercepted, and mopped up was radical for the time.
Not unlike Rodri, Makelele was an unsung hero: the glue that held together the Chelsea team that set a new record of just 15 goals conceded on their way to the 2004/05 title.
N’Golo Kante
Appearances: 227, Goals: 12, Assists: 17, League titles: 2
Kante’s defensive numbers were so good he was often mistaken for a Makelele-type destroyer.
In reality, Kante is an athletic all-action box-to-box midfielder whose ability to weave play together was criminally under-rated during his peak years in England, when he became the only player ever to win back-to-back Premier League titles with two different clubs (Leicester City and Chelsea).
Not that Kante has lost much of his ability. He looked like his old self for France at this summer’s EUROs, rolling back the years to remind us what a unique talent he is.
Patrick Vieira
Appearances: 307, Goals: 31, Assists: 34, League titles: 3
Speaking of unique talents, there is nobody quite like Vieira: a sublime midfielder who was as comfortable bursting through the back line as he was fending off a challenge and bringing his team-mates into play.
His battles with Keane were iconic during the period in which the Premier League rose to become the most famous division in the world, but to look upon him only as a destroyer – as a powerful, combative type – is to dramatically underappreciate his skill.
Vieira was central to Wenger’s rebuild that led to the Invincible campaign of 2003/04, acting as both the commanding physical presence to ground Arsenal and as one of their most important creative forces.
Fernandinho
Appearances: 264, Goals: 20, Assists: 19, League titles: 5
Before there was Rodri, there was Fernandinho: the battling defensive midfielder willing to do the dirty work for Mancini, Pellegrini, and Guardiola.
Another player in the shadow of Makelele and how the Frenchman captured the public imagination, Fernandinho’s technical ability (he was a very effective passer and ball-carrier) is often overlooked.
Fernandinho was the unsung hero in the 2013/14 Premier League title-winning season, and it is to the Brazilian’s enormous credit that he was able to adapt so quickly to the demands of Guardiola before age caught up with him.
That, of course, is what ushered in the era of Rodri: Premier League legend, best midfielder in the world, and – maybe - 2024 Ballon d’Or winner.
