The new Premier League season is just around the corner for Manchester City.
The 24/25 campaign was a very underwhelming one for Pep Guardiola’s men, having gone the entire campaign without a major trophy, but that looks set to fuel the Manchester club ahead of the upcoming campaign.
The goal will be to win back the Premier League title from Liverpool, and in order to do that, major changes have occurred over the summer, with the arrival of James Trafford at Man City making it six new faces at the Etihad Stadium.
However, it has been another new star that Guardiola has been paying a lot of attention to, which was spotted by one journalist during Man City’s opening training session this week.
Pep Guardiola giving out instructions during Manchester City training session.
Photo by James Gill – Danehouse/Getty Images
Pep Guardiola is working closely with Rayan Ait-Nouri
Manchester City held an open training session this week, and Guardiola was seen to be working closely with Rayan Cherki.
The French star is set to be a key figure for the Spanish coach over the coming 12 months and beyond, but the midfielder was not the only player getting special attention.
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According to Manchester Evening News’ Simon Bajkowski, Guardiola also gave Rayan Ait-Nouri a lot of time, as the left side of the legendary coach’s team was a weakness last season.
“Yeah, Cherki got quite a lot of attention from Pep. Pep was on Cherki quite a lot, telling him various things after he did certain things and things like that,” Bajkowski said on Talking City – Manchester City Podcast.
“And Ait-Nouri as well on that left-hand side. So that was something that he was definitely working on.”
Nedum Onuoha expects Ait-Nouri to bring goal contributions to Man City this season, which is what everyone associated with the Manchester club has in mind after what the £31m left-back did with Wolves throughout the 24/25 campaign.
Getting the best out of Ait-Nouri will certainly have positive results on Man City’s season, which is what Guardiola will also be hoping to do with Phil Foden.
Phil Foden is much happier at Man City
Following his incredible 23/24 campaign, last season was a big disappointment for Foden for many reasons, but the 25-year-old is doing everything to get back to his best ahead of the new term.
It was reported during the FIFA Club World Cup that Foden was noticeably happier at Man City, which remains the case, as Bajkowski has stated that the midfielder seemed a lot freer this week during the open training session.
“I mainly spoke to Phil Foden. And I’ve spoken to Phil a lot down the years. Showing my age more than his probably,” the Man City reporter said.
“But I’ve spoken to Phil when he’s been really happy to chat. And I’ve spoken to Phil when he’s been less happy to chat, but has been told he needs to or wanted to, but then really isn’t in the mood. And like, that’s not a criticism of him, because we all have it.
“But he was really happy yesterday, really happy to chat and was sort of buzzed about the session and then came sort of bounding over to us with a big grin on his face and laughing.
“And just seemed kind of, you know, I spoke to him in January when things were starting to get a bit better for him in the season, but he’d still had a lot of baggage and still had a lot of that to deal with. And he just felt a lot freer, seemed a lot freer yesterday, which can only be a positive.”