Pep Guardiola ordered his Manchester City players to stay away from the training ground after a gruelling week left them playing in 'unacceptable' conditions.
03.04.2024 - 23:33 / manchestereveningnews.co.uk
Pep Guardiola said 'different players' will feature against Crystal Palace as he once again hit out at the 'terrible' schedule.
Manchester City manager Guardiola said Phil Foden - hat-trick hero against Aston Villa - started poorly on the night on the back of 'one of his worst games of the season' against Arsenal at the weekend. While a 21-goal star may prefer kinder words about his performances, the target of Guardiola's point was the fixture schedule that has left City scrambling to keep their players fit.
Kyle Walker and John Stones have not played since pulling up injured in the international break and Erling Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne were left out of the team that beat Villa 4-1 on Wednesday night. That raised questions given their high profile, although Guardiola pointed to necessary sweeping changes for the players to be able to cope with the fixture list.
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"We have an incredible schedule, every three days," said Guardiola. "Look what happened.
"The guys who played two games in the national teams in friendly games are out and Phil maybe played one of his worst games of the season against Arsenal because he was exhausted from playing 96 minutes.
"Look at Kyle, John, Nathan [Ake]. The schedule is terrible. Three days, three days, three days.
"We have to bring new energy for each game and everybody has to be involved. All the guys were good and in the next game we're going to play different players."
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