RODRI’S ridiculous referee rant did have a grain of truth to it.
The Manchester City midfielder began his otherwise off-beam outburst with the observation: “I know we won too much and the people don’t want us to win.”
Rodri is wrong about match officials acting on that feeling.
But he is right about the antipathy towards City — and should take it as a compliment.
It is only when many neutrals are sick of you, that you know you have been really successful.
Liverpool bored English football to death with their domination of the 1970s and 1980s.
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Manchester United did the same for 20-odd years under Sir Alex Ferguson.
And now City have reached the same heights, in a way neither Arsenal nor Chelsea ever have.
Familiarity breeds contempt. And the sight of City lifting trophies has become oh so familiar.
Even their own fans can seem tired of it at times. The cost of travelling to Wembley to watch a final becomes more of an issue when you have seen it all before.
The long-running Premier League disciplinary case, despite City’s denials of wrongdoing, is an additional factor in their unpopularity.
But Rodri should be, to some extent at least, proud of not being liked.
And beware of finding himself in the position of people being nice to him instead.
That is what happened to Arsene Wenger.
The moment you knew Wenger’s Arsenal were finished as a serious force was when bitter rival Ferguson started being complimentary about the Frenchman.
City boss Pep Guardiola added his own twist to Fergie’s “kill them with kindness” philosophy.
The way he used to overpraise opposition teams or coaches or players, either just before City beat them, or immediately after, was another way of saying, “You are irrelevant”.
Although Guardiola has not been able to do that as much recently.
Rodri’s explanation for City’s lack of consistency is persistent bias by referees.
It is a theory worthy of the extremist wing of Arsenal fans. The ones who stockpile tinfoil for hats and think Stranger Things and The X-Files are documentaries.
At one stage, the gaga Gooners’ grand theory claimed match officials were conspiring against Arsenal. Or in favour of City. Or against all City’s rivals. Or all three. Or something. Perhaps Rodri is right and refs have just got together and decided to turn against City because they are bored of them winning.
Or maybe — just maybe — VAR and law changes have made officials’ jobs harder than ever, the current crop are not very good and they share their incompetence or confusion at random.
If the FA have any guts, Rodri will have some time on suspension to figure it out.
Meanwhile, Guardiola is also feeling the heat for his team’s underperformance, despite incoming transfers worth more than £400million in the last year and a bit.
The City boss loves to try a bit of sarcasm, with varying degrees of success.
Last week he said he was “grumpy” about his club being only seventh in the table for net spend over the last five years.
Nice try. It does not alter the fact City are only six points better off at this stage of the season than in 2024-25 — which was the worst campaign of his reign.
And stats prove on-field performance is more closely related to wage bill than transfer spend. Guess which club pays the most in the Premier League.
Guardiola would be better off blaming Rodri for not regaining the fitness and form which made him the rock of the 2022-23 Treble.
Or the City boss could ask what has gone wrong with recruitment at the Etihad.
Sporting director Txiki Begiristain’s exit and Hugo Viana’s arrival as his replacement over the past 12 months has not been seamless.
The jury is still out on some of the signings, although new additions Antoine Semenyo and Marc Guehi have started well.
But it may not be enough for City to stop Arsenal winning the title.
Which would mean the Premier League trophy being absent from the Etihad cabinet for two seasons in a row for the first time since Guardiola’s arrival in 2016.
A triumph for the Gunners would also threaten City’s status as the club ‘the people’ are most sick of.
To be as unpopular as Arsenal already are, without winning a big trophy for two decades, is a remarkable achievement — something only Liverpool have rivalled in recent times
Rodri should enjoy being hated while he can. He and City have earned it.
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