Barcelona's Pursuit of Rodri: Second Bid Expected
Barcelona’s first swing at Rodri has fallen well short of Manchester City’s asking price, but this transfer saga is only just warming up.
The Catalan club have seen a £38.6million offer rejected out of hand, with City valuing their midfield metronome at closer to £68.5m. The gap is not a small one; it is a chasm, and City do not currently see any reason to build a bridge.
Inside the Etihad, the view is clear: the proposal from Barcelona is so far below their valuation that there is no point even entering serious club-to-club negotiations. For now, there is no meeting in the middle, no creative structure, no compromise. Just a flat refusal.
But this is Barcelona, and this is Rodri. Nobody expects them to walk away after one attempt.
Barcelona push, Rodri waits
Barcelona are preparing a second bid for the former Atletico Madrid midfielder, who has emerged as their priority target to reshape a midfield suddenly stripped of certainty.
Rodri, a World Cup winner and the 2024 Ballon d’Or holder, is understood to favour a move to Barcelona over any other destination. Real Madrid have also been circling, but the player’s preference tilts towards the Camp Nou.
That matters. Real Madrid had been confident of closing a deal for the 30-year-old, who has just one year left on his City contract. They liked the timing, the contractual leverage, the opportunity to prise away one of the Premier League’s defining players. Then Barcelona stepped in, and the landscape changed.
Rodri has never hidden his ambition to return to La Liga at some stage in his career. Now, with Manchester City entering a period of upheaval after the departure of long-serving manager Pep Guardiola, that long-term idea has hardened into a short-term plan. He wants a move this summer.
A reshaping City, a wounded Barça
City’s stance is strong, but not immovable. They have already started to remodel their midfield, paying £116m to bring in Elliot Anderson from Nottingham Forest. The Premier League champions are also heavily linked with Lille’s Ayyoub Bouaddi, who caught the eye with Morocco at the World Cup.
Those moves do not mean City are resigned to losing Rodri. They do, however, show a club planning for a different future, with or without him.
Barcelona, meanwhile, are not chasing a luxury signing. They are plugging a hole.
Frenkie De Jong’s torn medial collateral ligament in his right knee, suffered in July, is expected to rule him out of the start of the 2026/27 season. That is a brutal timeline for a side built around control in the middle of the pitch. It has forced Barcelona to look not just for cover, but for a new reference point at the base of their midfield.
Rodri fits that brief perfectly: a La Liga-schooled pivot, technically immaculate, tactically ruthless, and now decorated with the game’s biggest individual honour.
Fitness questions, timing answers
There is one wrinkle: Rodri’s recent back surgery. The City midfielder underwent a minor procedure after the World Cup, a detail that might have scared off more cautious buyers.
Barcelona are not among them. The expectation is that he will be back before the end of the month, and the Catalans view the operation as a manageable issue rather than a red flag. For a player of his calibre, and at 30, this is a calculated risk they are more than prepared to take.
So the stage is set. A player who wants La Liga. Two giants who both see him as the missing piece. A selling club that does not yet want to sell, but has a contract ticking down and a squad already evolving.
The first bid was brushed aside. The second will say far more about how badly Barcelona want Rodri — and how serious City really are about keeping him at any price.
