Mateo Kovacic found his scoring boots to get Manchester City back to winning ways, as boss Pep Guardiola joked it was a “copy and paste” job of Rodri.
Rodri, City’s key defensive midfielder, is basically irreplaceable. But since his season-ending ACL injury, Kovacic and Ilkay Gundogan are playing as a double pivot.
Such is City’s style of play that both ended up playing the majority of Saturday’s 3-2 win in Fulham’s half.
It ended a run of two Premier League draws since Rodri’s injury against Arsenal. Failure to win on Saturday would have meant their worst league run in 2024.
Kovacic, 30, is not a goalscoring midfielder. That has never been his job at Dinamo Zagreb, Inter Milan, Real Madrid, Chelsea or Manchester City.
But you do not end up with a list of clubs like that without being a top-quality midfielder.
“He is not a top goalscorer but he maybe saw how many goals Rodri has scored in that position and did copy and paste. He scored two fantastic goals,” Guardiola told BBC Match of the Day afterwards.
Kovacic’s first was a deflected shot from a half-cleared corner and his second was a clean strike from the edge of the area early in the second half.
In his post-match news conference, Guardiola added: “They went four to five [defenders]. When they defended with five there is one man free on the edge of the box – Kovacic.
“The two goals were because in that position they can’t defend it. Kovacic was really important. Now opponents know they can’t leave him alone or he can score a goal.”
Kovacic’s double takes him up to three league goals for the season – having also netted against former club Chelsea – his best campaign already since 2014-15 for Inter Milan.
This marked only the second time he has ever scored more than once in a game – after a 2014 Europa League qualifying hat-trick for Inter against Icelandic side Stjarnan.
He celebrated a goal by sucking a thumb and told BBC Radio 5 Live: “It means a lot because my wife is pregnant so it was great to get some goals for the little one.”
Kovacic, who is at home in the heart of midfield, is in his second season with City having moved from Chelsea.
Last season he started fewer than half their matches in the league but was a regular starter in Europe and the domestic cups.
But this season he has started six of their seven Premier League games – with Rodri having missed the start of the season with a hamstring problem, before his current knee injury.
And only five players have made more successful passes than Kovacic’s 453 this season.
Despite supposedly being in that defensive role, he does not even rank in the top 50 for successful passes in his own half…
But he ranks second for successful passes in the opposition half – and into the final third. In both cases team-mate Manuel Akanji is top.
Most of Kovacic’s general stats (as shown in a graphic below) rank below Rodri – but it is unfair to compare anyone to the Ballon d’Or nominee, when, mere weeks ago, we were asking whether he was the best player in the world.
“Rodri is a different player to the rest of them. He does everything and they did miss him today,” said BBC Radio 5 Live pundit Chris Waddle, a former England international.
“Gundogan and Kovacic are different players.”
Former England international Steph Houghton added: “Mateo Kovacic’s game is based on being tidy and simple.
“Kovacic is a perfect replacement for Rodri with his experience at previous clubs and Croatia. He played really well today.”
Kovacic, himself, said: “I am playing there in the middle at the moment and of course we need to cover for Rodri, we miss him a lot.
“For now we have to adapt and for sure the manager has a lot of options, so we can rotate.”
The concern for Manchester City will be how many chances they gave up against Fulham.
Adama Traore, alone, missed three huge chances to score. Two one-on-ones were saved by Ederson and he ballooned another shot over from inside the box.
Guardiola did not criticise anyone in his team for that though, choosing to praise Traore instead.
“My feeling is the game was well played but what chances they had, especially with Adama – he is unstoppable that guy, it’s impossible to control him – we were a little bit uh-uh,” he said.
Fulham boss Silva even admitted afterwards that if Traore could take all his chances he would not be at his club.
City’s expected goals conceded on Saturday was 2.4 – more than their own xG of 1.55.
Only on two occasions in the Premier League last season did they have a higher xG against – a 4-4 draw with Chelsea and 1-1 draw with Liverpool, both away from home.
And their 1.57 expected goals conceded in the previous game against Newcastle would have been their seventh-highest last season.
So work to do for them in this Rodri-less campaign.
