“On the field, outside the field, every detail counts,” Man City defender Gael Clichy said. For example, you often hear managers say being healthy is really important. With him, if you’re weight is too high, you’re not training with the team. That is the first thing and you can hear it a lot, but for my part it’s the first time any manager has really done it. So we have a few players who are not training with the team yet.”  

“He cut out some juice and pizza and all the heavy food is not allowed,” said the 31-year-old France international. Some people think: ‘That’s normal, it should be like this.’ But in truth it’s not always like this and I know because I’ve been playing football for a long time. It’s really refreshing and very exciting.” 

“He’s an ideal manager for any kind of player. The goalkeeper needs to be better with their feet, the centre-backs are improving, the full-backs are important, the centre midfield – he said something like if he could play 11 midfielders, he would play them, so I guess for a midfielder it’s unbelievable. And the strikers are going to score a lot of goals because we are going to create a lot of chances. I can even tell you that the assistant manager will improve so he’s the kind of guy that, if you’re lucky to work with him during your career, he is someone you will remember for a long time because he’s truly impressive.”

“I’ve been lucky because I’ve trained only a few weeks with Guardiola and I was eight years with Wenger,” he said. “There are a lot of similarities between the two but also so much difference. In eight or nine years, Guardiola has won pretty much everything and he’s changed the way we see football. 

“He was probably one of the first to bring the full-backs really high, to put a midfield player as a centre-back. It’s a step forward. Wenger, years ago, brought something back from wherever he was [France and Japan] into English football and kind of changed the way people see football. I guess the two of them are just great managers but you could say the same for Ferguson and Mourinho. 

“Every manager has their own philosophy and for sure he’s coming with his own ideas and it’s quite refreshing for us.”