Samir Nasri may be away at Sevilla on a season-long loan but that didn’t stop him from revealing some of the punitive measures Pep Guardiola took upon his arrival at Manchester City. According to him, one of his first acts as manager was to ban his players from having sex after midnight even if they were off the next day
Exerting control over his players’ sex lives wasn’t the only disciplinary measure he took said Nasri who revealed a few unique features of the Spaniard’s techniques while speaking to French newspaper L’Equipe. If sex post-midnight was banned, so was certain food items on the menu at the training ground – all done to get the best out of his players.
“Relations must be before midnight. Even if you have a free day the following day,” Nasri said. “It's so you can have a good night's sleep. He told us this is how he managed to get the best out of [Lionel] Messi and [Robert] Lewandowski, and for them to avoid the maximum number of muscular injuries. He suppressed many things that were in the kitchen.”
According to the French midfielder, Guardiola’s disciplinary tactics wasn’t the only notable aspect of the way he runs his team. Nasri himself couldn’t meet the former Barcelona manager’s high standards and was shunted off to Spain in the final days of the transfer window. He said that while Guardiola wanted all his players to progress he was also extremely picky and paid intensive attention to detail.
The former Arsenal player was made to watch videos of himself from training and subjected to constant analysis of his performance during training sessions.
“With Guardiola, on the first day of training, you know how you should play, how to squeeze and also how to stand off the ball. The next day, you have videos for everything that you have to do.
“He will not bully you, but he will do everything to make you progress, to get you to know you how to position yourself and how to play. He's a picky person.”
While Guardiola may have thought that controlling his players’ food and sex habits was the way to go in Spain and Germany it might not be the best antidote in England where he and his team have won two games out of nine and dropped to third position in the Premier League table after a roaring start to the season.
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