Pep Guardiola reveals Manchester City's Christmas Day plans | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola has revealed his players will be given extra time with their families on Christmas Day before reporting for duty.

Manchester City travel to Leicester on Boxing Day hoping to bounce back following defeat by Crystal Palace on Saturday and must train on the 25th.

However, Guardiola has made allowances and the squad will take part in a 5pm session meaning they will be able to spend an extra hour with their families.

“We are going to adapt to the calendar, sometimes we’ve played 26, 28, 30 Dec – just days between,” he said.

“Now we’ve got three or four days between the games. We’ll train in the afternoon on the 25th before we travel to Leicester. We have to train before the game, we have to.

“Normally we train at 3pm or 4pm, but we have to train at five, to stay later for one hour with the people at home.”

Guardiola insists players in England accept they have to train on Christmas Day due to the busy festive period and added: “We have to train before an official game,

“The players know they are in England. In Germany and most other leagues they stop the leagues.

“If we played the 27th then the 25th would have been the day off, but the 26th means we train on the 25th, that’s normal.”

Following Leicester, City do not play again until the 30th when they have another away game, at Southampton and currently sit four points behind Premier League leaders Liverpool.