Fabrizio Romano revealed late on Thursday night that the reason it is taking so long for Real Madrid to complete the signing of Manchester City's Rodri is because the Citizens want other clubs to join the race as soon as possible.
Real Madrid have been working on signing Rodri for the last week or so, and there has been progress made. They have officially started talking to Manchester City about a potential deal, and they have made a verbal offer of about €50 million, according to Romano.
Obviously, Manchester City want more than that, and they are trying to buy some time and linger on a little bit because they want some clubs to join the race and see if there's any other club that wants to sign Rodri this summer.
Obviously, it has been reported that their ideal scenario is to keep Rodri for another season, regardless of whether he signs a contract extension or not.
On the other hand, they have been accelerating talks with Lille for Bouaddi, who they have an agreement with, which is also an indication that Real Madrid will end up getting Rodri at some point.
Rodri does not want other clubs; he just wants Real Madrid
But City want more clubs to join so that there are other clubs that are willing to outbid what Real Madrid want to pay. It's only a smart strategy, though, as long as the player in question is open to going to any club.
In this situation, Rodri knows that he wants to join Real Madrid. It has been mentioned by many journalists and many people close to the story in the past that Rodri only wants to play for Real Madrid.
That alone could work in Real Madrid's favor because Rodri could simply say that he doesn't want to play for a PSG or a Barcelona. Then any potential offers those clubs make to Manchester City would be null and void because the player doesn't want to go there.
That is also what Romano means by saying that the player also has some power in deciding where he wants to go. It has also been reported by Romano that Real Madrid are willing to go above €50 million, but obviously they wouldn't want to pay an extortionate amount of money for a player who is out of contract in just one year.
Either way, Real Madrid definitely need the services of Rodri, and they should just get it done as soon as they possibly can because that would complete the squad for the season.
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