Pep Guardiola has often discussed body language during his time at Manchester City.
The Spaniard wants his Manchester City players looking engaged and ambitious at all times, memorably saying in January 2023: “Mainly lately, perhaps as I am older, I look at the body language in the training sessions and everything.
“You cannot play good when the body language is not correct. Sometimes I pick them for the body language, for how happy they look. This is one of my main decisions when I choose the line-up.”
Now, Pep Guardiola has been filmed appearing to drill this particular instruction into a new signing at Manchester City in Rayan Cherki.
What Pep Guardiola was seen doing with Rayan Cherki
Footage posted by Hayters TV on X (previously known as Twitter) shows the man born in Santpedor speaking intensely to the France international – who arrived from Lyon in a £30.5m move in June.
Just four seconds into the video, Guardiola drops his head twice to mimic a sulking gesture, before waving his hands to the side as if to say “I do not want to see this” in a highly gesticulative manner.
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To us, it is the 54-year-old telling Cherki, who Liverpool wanted, to keep his head held high and try to be positive at all times, a message he delivered to Erling Haaland publicly back in February 2024.
Erling Haaland was told to manifest results by Pep Guardiola
After a run of four games without a goal during the 2023/24 campaign, the Norway international was told the following by Guardiola – as quoted by the Telegraph.
“He has to learn that if he doesn’t score, he has to have this right body language. He has to have this mood where he’s positive and he’s saying, okay, it will come, it will come.”
Continuing the conversation about Haaland – who Cherki cannot wait to play with – Guardiola added: “Body language is everything in life.”
There are supposedly few doubts over Cherki’s technical ability, or else Manchester City wouldn’t have entrusted him to replace Kevin De Bruyne at the Etihad Stadium.
Now, the task for Guardiola is to turn the 21-year-old into a mentality monster as well as an immense technician, a mission which already seems to have started judging by the footage posted by Hayters TV.