Nico Gonzalez: How the ‘mini-Rodri’ is making Man City tick again

Pep Guardiola was a long-time admirer of Nico Gonzalez but a late, deadline day move for the midfielder is filling a hole in the Man City side

Pep Guardiola was Bayern Munich’s manager when he heard whispers about a young talent in the academy that, three decades earlier, had produced him. It was another midfielder, a Barcelona speciality. The boy seemed a blend of nurture and nature, at the finishing school at La Masia that Guardiola rates as the best in the game, with the genes of his father Fran Gonzalez, perhaps Deportivo la Coruna’s greatest ever player, a midfielder who was a LaLiga winner and a Spain teammate of the current Manchester City manager.

“The rumours were there about this player, one of the best in his generation,” said Guardiola. He and Txiki Begiristain, another with Barcelona in his blood, sought to bring him to City. They only belatedly succeeded, years later, at a cost that touches on £50m. Not signing Nico Gonzalez sooner – whether as a teenager, when Porto picked him up in 2023 for €8.5m or last summer – could rank as one of City’s expensive mistakes.

Better late than never, perhaps. Certainly Gonzalez’s eventual arrival had Guardiola salivating. His home debut, Saturday’s 4-0 demolition of Newcastle, was inspired by one new signing, the hat-trick hero, Omar Marmoush. It was underpinned by another: Gonzalez provided the platform City had lacked in the centre of the pitch since Rodri was injured. And rather from shying away from references to another Spaniard, Guardiola made them, time and again.

Gonzalez impressed in Man City’s 4-0 win over Newcastle (Getty Images)

Guardiola argued Gonzalez benefited from his education. “The club bought an incredible player for the future in terms of mentality,” he said. “Maybe for the player it was better to stay in Barcelona [when he did]. Barcelona’s academy shows you it is the best in the world, how it teaches you the concepts: the body shape, how to pass the ball. In Porto, Sergio Conceicao helps a lot to bring his football, how to be aggressive and smart and play a different type of game.”

City had needed a different type of game, too. Guardiola had described their midfield as old. He brought in a player who has just turned 23. Without Rodri, they were small, too, lacking in physical power, deprived of a ball-winner. Enter Gonzalez. “He is like a mini-Rodri,” said his new manager. “It is a big compliment but in terms of the presence, he is big, in the duels.” Only 2cm shorter than the Ballon d’Or winner, Gonzalez is not that mini a Rodri.

But, unlike Mateo Kovacic or Ilkay Gundogan, he is a defensive midfielder, a bulwark in front of the back four. There is a reason why the position can be called a pivot. “I think the presence of Nico help us a lot because if there are 10 balls in 50-50 and he wins seven, you can run,” said Guardiola. “If he loses seven, they will run. His presence with long balls and [going] backwards where Rodri was really important.”

There was applause at the Etihad when Gonzalez dispossessed from Tino Livramento, simply by getting his body in front of the Newcastle full-back. It was the product of size as well as anticipation. “This presence that in the Premier League you have to have,” said Guardiola.

Statistics showed that Gonzalez made three tackles, winning none; he nevertheless offered a solidity. On the ball, he attempted 103 passes, completing 100; perhaps that background at Barcelona was apparent in the 97 percent completion rate. Guardiola liked his leadership, too, noting the moment the newcomer corrected Erling Haaland. There was a knock-on effect from his arrival, too: Gundogan appeared to get a new lease of life. Instead of labouring as he went backwards, he was liberated to go forwards and set up Marmoush’s second goal.

According to Guardiola, Gonzalez was always on City’s radar. Certainly the club wanted someone who was not purely a holding midfielder; someone who, when Rodri is fit again, can dovetail with him, to be either the No 6 or the No 8.

Gonzalez is set to be involved at the Bernabeu after picking up a knock for last week’s first leg against Real Madrid (Getty Images)

“I think he can play in both positions,” added Guardiola. “In Barcelona, he plays more as No 8. That means he's a guy who arrives to the box. He has the ability to dribble but when he arrives, the role that Gundo has done in the treble year, that can be an attacking midfielder [or a] holding midfielder, this double position, he can do it perfectly, so, he can do with Rodri, that shape to go forward and back.”

The ominous element is that, suddenly, the future of City’s midfield, beyond Gundogan and Kevin de Bruyne, Kovacic and Bernardo Silva, is taking shape. A sizeable shape, too, if it comprises two six-footers. “You think in the next six or seven years we'll have Rodri back and we will have him and that will give us more presence and more stability that we miss this season,” added Guardiola.

If one interpretation was that Gonzalez was a panic buy in the final hours of the transfer window, Guardiola argued it was the culmination of a decade-long pursuit of a player. Whichever, and while Saturday was only one game, it indicated the whispers Guardiola heard years ago were true.