Pep Guardiola has strict 'two kilogram rule' at Man City, Sergio Aguero and Kalvin Phillips broke it

Pep Guardiola has a strict rule regarding players' weight and will punish them accordingly if they do not adhere.

The Manchester City manager is known for his high standards and will not refrain from coming down on big names if they are not pulling their weight.

In fact, former City left-back Gael Clichy claims that the Catalan has a stance whereby if players are two kilograms over, they are banned from training with the rest of the group.

Clichy joined City from Arsenal in 2011 and won two Premier League titles before spending a season under Guardiola in 2016/17.

And during that stint, he experienced players being banished if their weight was higher than it should have been in Guardiola's view.

"If you weighed two kilos more than what he considered your maximum weight, you didn't train," Clichy told Marca, as per the Daily Mail.

"In football, you always hear coaches say: 'If you're overweight, you don't train.' "In the end, if it's an important player, the norm is swept under the rug because they need that player.

"With Pep Guardiola, if you were two kilos above the weight you should have after finishing the hard work and proper nutrition of the preseason, you did not train. I saw players who did not train during two weeks."

Image: Getty

Sergio Aguero was City's talisman for years before Guardiola was appointed but he felt the wrath of the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss.

The Argentine was dropped for a game after he "turning up fat".

"If your ideal weight is 79-80kg and you were 80 kilos and 100 grams you would be fined and you don't play," Aguero said on El Chiringuito's live stream,

'But it can happen! You come across a little bit of chicken for example then you are going to be 50 grams over!"

"Well the first season we were between fourth and third and he said, 'I left you out because you turned up fat this week'. And what was I going to say? He was right… these things happen.

"He said it in a good way. And at this time I didn't really have his confidence. But I was always very respectful to the coaches…"

More recently Guardiola called Kalvin Phillips "overweight" following the World Cup in Qatar - a comment that the former Leeds United man found "tough to take".

He was then subjected to jokey "fat" chants by his old fans at Elland Road.

Phillips told BBC 5 Live: "I, for me, wasn't overweight, but obviously the manager saw it in a different way. I took it, did my best to try and get as fit as possible and I was on the bench for the Leeds game straight after that. I was fit for every game since then.

"It was just one of those things where it was a misunderstanding between me and some staff members."

Topics: Pep Guardiola, Manchester City, Sergio Aguero, Kalvin Phillips

Josh Lawless

Josh is a sports journalist who specialises in football and wrestling. He has been published by Curzon Ashton FC, Late Tackle, Manchester City FC, The Mirror, Read Man City and Manchester Evening News. He provides coverage of professional wrestling and has interviewed some of the biggest names in the field - including the first UK interview with The Hardy Boyz after their return to WWE. He has never sported a pair of Lonsdale Slip-ons, contrary to reports.

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