Talk of strike is preposterous – if Rodri wants to play less he could take a pay cut

If the poor Manchester City midfielder is being flogged for all he is worth, why does he not just ask his manager to rest him more?

If Rodri is soliciting sympathy through his threat to go on strike, his last resort in railing against an excessive workload, he might find he hears only the sound of the world’s smallest violin.
It is not so much the money – although a North Sea oil rig worker could reasonably object to a man earning £180,000 a week fretting about heightened injury risk – as the principle. Never mind a first-world problem, the grievance expressed by the Manchester City midfielder affects such a tiny proportion of players that the very notion of industrial action is preposterous.
Yes, Rodri gives his pound of flesh for club and country, having racked up 6,107 minutes over a 12-month period until July, encompassing 36 games consecutively. But he is the exception rather than the norm. Plenty have found their experience at City disfigured by how little they played, rather than how much. Even a figure of Raheem Sterling’s talent ended up leaving the Etihad because of how often he was warming the bench. So Rodri is, to put it mildly, at the pointy end of the pyramid.
The timing of the Spaniard’s complaint, at the start of a newly engorged Champions League group phase, indicates his ire is squarely aimed at Uefa. But it would surely be more usefully directed at his club. After all, it is City who are ultimately responsible for flogging him, tying him last season to such a remorseless schedule that he had an average of just 5.3 days’ rest between matches. 
And yet they have specifically prioritised building strength in depth in their squad, spending more than £500 million during Pep Guardiola’s eight years in charge on defenders alone. So if Rodri is now a husk of a man after his exertions, he could start by asking his manager why he is not rotated more.
Both he and Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson, who has likewise despaired at the endless increase in European engagements, believe they are the victims in football’s restlessly expansionist quest. But theirs is hardly a cause the majority can rally behind. 
As Javier Tebas, president of La Liga, puts it: “We always think of 150 or 200 players who play all the games. But in Europe, there are more than 50,000 players who do not, and who don’t have the problem of the match load. Football cannot be governed by what happens to 200 players, but by the rest, because all these new tournaments would empty the national leagues economically and impact the salaries of other players with fewer club revenues.”
Rodri is right in one sense: that if the demands are too unrelenting, his body will break down and the quality of the product will suffer. But whose fault is that? Is it Uefa’s? Or is it City’s, after their acquiescence in a revamped Champions League, a month-long Club World Cup next summer, not to mention a post-Euros pre-season tour extending from New York to Orlando, Charlotte to Columbus? 
You hear all the time from top Premier League clubs about fixture congestion, about the non-stop hamster wheel that their players must suffer. They can also, however, be their own worst enemies. No sooner did Tottenham finish a gruelling campaign in May than they embarked, the very next day, on a 21,000-mile round trip for a friendly against Newcastle in Melbourne.
There is, of course, another measure Rodri could take beyond this petulant suggested strike. If he believes that the optimum number of games to preserve his fitness is between 40 and 50 – rather than the 60 to 70 that another Treble pursuit would mandate – then he could accept a pay cut commensurate with his reduced commitments. Some hope. Rodri, in common with his gilded peers, is only too happy to accept the vast pay packet that flows from a crowded fixture list and the accompanying huge broadcast deals.
We hear zero acknowledgement that 30 per cent fewer games should equate to 30 per cent less remuneration. On the contrary, Rodri, as second favourite behind Real Madrid’s Vinicius Jnr to win the Ballon d’Or, is in prime position to negotiate doubling his money at City. 
So, in essence, the deal that he is putting forward is that he receives more for less. And that if he is not indulged, he will withdraw his lavishly rewarded labour. It scarcely seems like the urgent moral crusade of our times. If Rodri is feeling the strain, he should simply ask his abundantly resourced club for a rest, rather than subjecting supporters to an entitled lament.