Manchester City’s stars do not want more holidays this year, insists Bernardo Silva | OneFootball

Bernardo Silva has claimed Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City stars do not want more holidays this summer, despite a suggestion of needing rest ahead of the new campaign.

Coming off the back of last season, the word around the club during several media activities before and after matches was that the summer-long Club World Cup tournament was a step too far for athletes crying out for a break amid a congested calendar.

One of the most outspoken critics was Manchester City central defender Manuel Akanji, who said in the build-up to the competition, “We players would love to have some holidays, some time for our bodies to rest.

“My teammates are not exactly overjoyed about the tournament either,” he added. “But it’s now right in our faces, and there’s nothing we can do.”

However, the ideal rest and work environment structured around the Manchester City squad in Boca Raton, Florida and the early exit from the tournament at the hands of Al Hilal this week has seemingly left the players with a very different feeling compared to pre-competition.

Speaking after City’s shock defeat to the aforementioned Saudi Pro League side in the last-16 of the FIFA Club World Cup this week, club captain Bernardo Silva told reporters of the club’s internal ambition to go as far as possible in the tournament.

“No one wanted to lose, no one wanted more vacations,” the Manchester City captain insisted. “We are very used to not having holidays unfortunately because the schedule is crazy.”

The midfielder continued, “But when we are in a competition we take it very seriously and we had a lot of ambition for this Club World Cup and we wanted to win it.”

Given the huge disappointment within the camp over Manchester City’s exit from the Club World Cup, the 31-year-old was asked whether the feeling of going out was similar to exiting the UEFA Champions League, to which he replied, “Yeah, a little bit, yeah.”

But how does the rest of Manchester City’s summer look with the Premier League season not starting until August 16?

“We don’t know [the schedule] yet. We know when we start the Premier League, we will try to have as much rest as possible but also coming back to prepare for the season properly,” Bernardo Silva said.

He added, “That’s not my job, that’s the manager and his staff’s job to prepare the players, two or three weeks, whatever. But we are going to prepare the season.”

Manchester City are now set to be handed around four weeks off from training ground activities before resuming work at the end of this month as the club looks ahead to the start of the 2025/26 campaign.

Vitor Pereira’s Wolves marks the start of the new Premier League season as Pep Guardiola and his players travel to Molineux on Saturday 16 August, in what will also be Rayan Ait-Nouri’s first visit to his previous home before joining Manchester City earlier this summer.