Pep Guardiola is one of the greatest managers in football history, and he’s also one of the most ruthless men in football history.
Guardiola isn’t afraid to make cut-throat decisions when he has to, Joe Hart was axed from the Man City team as soon as Pep Guardiola came in, while the manager also made a big call on Jack Grealish this summer.
Speaking on Ben Foster’s Podcast, Gael Clichy has shared some insight into what it’s like to work under Pep Guardiola and a brutal decision he made when he first arrived.
Indeed, according to Clichy, Guardiola actually forced three players to train on their own at Manchester City early on because they were overweight, and, interestingly, one of those was none other than Kevin De Bruyne.
Kevin De Bruyne says goodbye at Manchester City
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Pep Guardiola made Kevin De Bruyne train alone
Clichy told the story of Guardiola’s arrival at Manchester City.
According to the full-back, Guardiola made it clear from day one that he wouldn’t stand for any of his players coming in out of shape.
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In fact, Guardiola said that any player found to be two kilos or more overweight would have to train away from the rest of the team.
Kevin De Bruyne, Yaya Toure and Samir Nasri apparently all fell foul of this rule initially before working their way back into the side.
“He arrived and the first meeting he had with us at City lasted 45 minutes, and he talked about everything except football. And he told us one of the first rules, a player who is two kilos overweight, and this is not you giving us your weight, it’s us after pre-season, he’s not going to train,” Clichy said.
“And I was like, okay, I’m listening now, because I’ve always been on to food and nutrition and how you sleep and how you live life because it’s a job.
“And then the first three players, Yaya Toure, Samir Nasri and Kevin De Bruyne, all of them overweight, what are you going to do now? And they just ran, so Kevin was the first one to lose the two kilos, so he joined the team fairly quickly.
“Yaya took a bit longer and Samir was the second one. So I thought to myself, sometimes the words that you use means a lot, but the acts means more.”
Pep Guardiola has called out another Man City player for being overweight
It’s not all that surprising to hear Clichy tell this story.
Indeed, Guardiola has been strict on this type of thing for a long time.
In fact, at one point, Guardiola even called Kalvin Phillips out for being overweight.
“He’s not injured. He arrived overweight. I don’t know [why],” Guardiola said, via Sky Sports.
“He didn’t arrive in the condition to do training sessions and to play.”
De Bruyne was in a similar situation once upon a time, but, as Clichy says, the £54m man quickly turned things around.
De Bruyne is arguably City’s greatest ever player now, and he and Guardiola grew to be an incredible partnership, despite a rocky start to life together in Manchester.