Pep Guardiola has turned to a tried and tested method to recharge Manchester City for the final few months of the season: mandatory time off.
With no midweek game after an exhausting sequence of fixtures, the players have been given a couple of days to completely switch off and forget about football.
That may seem too simple, but it is not a gesture shared by every club. News of getting days off in a row reached the Belgium camp by 2018, when Spurs defender Jan Vertonghen described it as a “negative point” that Mauricio Pochettino does not subscribe to that school of thought.
City’s staff are all over the players while they are in the confines of the Etihad – “We don’t love each other too much, the players and the staff,” the coach said recently. “We don’t let them breathe, but it’s the only way.” – but once they drive out of the training ground it is their time.
Bernardo Silva likes to wander in the Northern Quarter when he gets the chance and is a regular in many a city-centre restaurant, while Kevin De Bruyne has been described as enjoying quiet nights in with his young family. Raheem Sterling has noticed his maturing since he moved from Anfield in 2015.
“When I was going through it at Liverpool, you want to win it but at the same time you were a bit more anxious and you don’t really want to make a mistake because you don’t want to lose,” he said.
“But we’re really calm and ready to go waiting for these games. Once the games have finished, relax at home, chill with your family, enjoy it and the most important thing is to take your mind off football and don’t really think about it until the games come up.”
That calmness has been picked up on by Riyad Mahrez, who has found the “calm and composed” dressing room in Manchester completely different to the mood at Leicester when they were on the way to their remarkable trophy win.
Riyad Mahrez won the Premier League with Leicester in 2016
City remain too busy to go away for a warm-weather break this season; they have previously gone away for a short period in each of Guardoila’s first two seasons at the club, while Liverpool have enjoyed two trips in 2019 following their exits from the domestic cups.
But time away on their own may be exactly what is needed to switch off from the intense nature of daily life with the coaching staff and the crucible of the title race.
The players have been allowed to switch off completely in the hope that they can switch on exactly when it matters.