Our players are not overweight – Guardiola
Manchester City's head coach Pep Guardiola attends a team training session
Pep Guardiola has denied dictating to his
Manchester City players exactly what they can eat and said none were
overweight, after Gael Clichy claimed the new manager had banned junk
food and exiled out-of-shape stars.
Speaking in China, where City are on a
money-spinning pre-season tour, the French defender told the Guardian
newspaper and other British media that former Barcelona and Bayern
Munich coach Guardiola had wasted no time in laying down the law.
“You often hear managers say being
healthy is really important. With him, if your weight is too high,
you’re not training with the team. That is the first thing and you can
hear it a lot, but for my part it’s the first time any manager has
really done it,” Clichy said.
“So we have a few players who are not training with the team yet.
“He cut out some juice and pizza and all the heavy food is not allowed,” added the 31-year-old.
There has been plenty of attention paid
to Guardiola’s new regime on and off the pitch since his high-profile
arrival this summer, but the Spaniard denied taking a dictatorial
approach with his players.
“The nutritionist is the boss. I’m not a
chef. He decides what they have to eat,” he said, speaking in the
southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, the latest leg of their stop-start
China tour.
He also denied his players had returned to training out of shape: “No, they are not overweight.
“I want my players fit. For me that is important… I need to get my players absolutely fit.”
City’s pre-season preparations took a
hit on Monday when their derby against Manchester United was called off
because of the poor pitch at Beijing’s “Bird’s Nest” Olympic Stadium,
following heavy rain.
Guardiola, who will be under pressure to
inspire ambitious City to silverware in his first season, now wants to
get on with the business of playing football.
He revealed that the club were making a
frantic push to line up an English Championship or non-league club for a
friendly next week to replace the lost Beijing game.
“We haven’t travelled here to China for
just a holiday, we have travelled here to play games,” said Guardiola.
“Maybe it’s a lesson for the people who organised the games. The pitch
is the most important thing.”
The City players arrived in Shenzhen on
Tuesday and were given scorching late afternoon workouts, and again
Wednesday, as they dusted off the disappointment of the cancelled
Manchester derby.
Guardiola said he had been enjoying putting the City squad through its paces and assessing the quality at his disposal.
“Every manager has his own ideas,” he
said. “But it’s impossible to achieve even one victory if the players
don’t want it. They are comfortable with the challenge and they are
trying to understand me and I am trying to understand them as soon as
possible.”
The heat in Shenzhen remains as it was in Beijing – baking – but there seems little chance of any similar heavy downpours.
So City have been able to get on with
the business at hand –- getting match ready for Borussia Dortmund, who
breezed past United 4-1 in Shanghai last Friday.
Guardiola’s men can expect much of the
same Thursday from last season’s Bundesliga runners-up in front of what
is expected to be a sell-out crowd of around 40,000 at the Shenzhen
Universiade Stadium.
The Spaniard revealed he had been singling out his midfielders for extra work when it came to tracking back to help the defence.
Midfielder Fabian Delph, who joined his
boss to meet the press before Wednesday’s workout, said City’s players
knew what they were in for when Guardiola signed on.
Post a Comment