Cape Town — Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has been angered after two of his players were photographed in a nightclub after their 7-0 win over Leeds United.
The duo, £100 million-man Jack Grealish and academy graduate Phil Foden, were left out of their 4-0 win over Newcastle United on Sunday.
The report in the Telegraph says Guardiola was so upset by the pair’s antics that he decided to drop them for the Newcastle clash.
When asked why Grealish and Foden were absent for the Newcastle match, the Spaniard said: “It was not rotation, no.”
“I decided on this team because they deserved to play today, these guys and not the other ones.
“At Christmas time I pay a lot of attention to behaviour on and off the pitch. And when off the pitch is not proper, they are not going to play.
“So we have to be focussed all the time because of distractions at Christmas time and everything that happens, you have to still be focussed.
“If the players believe I rotated for that game they are mistaken.
“I decide the best team today for the way they play. We needed a different pace for the players and that’s why they play.
“I don’t know if we are going to play Leicester [on Boxing Day], unfortunately they have a lot of [Covid] cases, hopefully they are getting better. It depends what we see in the training sessions and it depends what we see on and off the pitch, how the players behave in this period, and I will take a decision.”
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