Man City’s under-pressure stars slept at the club’s training ground on Christmas Day as they looked to recover from their worrying run of form.

It is now nine defeats in 12 matches for Pep Guardiola‘s men, who seemed way off the pace last time out, lost 2-1 to Villa Aston.

3

As the Citizens are doing everything to be able to bounce back, the players were forced to spend the night on their training ground.

That’s because they face Everton at the Etihad Stadium at 12:30 p.m. – live on talkSPORT.

And manager Guardiola wanted to make sure they maintained their usual routine, even though it was the festive season.

Asked about their plans, he said: “We’re training today (Tuesday), we’re training tomorrow night (Christmas), we’ll stay here and we’ll play Boxing Day.”

He added: “I hope they want to be here, because this is our job.”

Ancient Liverpool striker Dean Saunders joked that it was probably a good night for the City stars.

And he added that they would be in a luxurious setting, even if, at first glance, it seems like a miserable setting.

He told talkSPORT: “I kind of imagine all the Man City players gathered together to watch Gavin and Stacey’s final together last night in their Christmas pajamas.

“It’s normal, you know. It’s normal. It seems wrong to stay on the training ground. The Man City training ground is like the Hilton.”

And Saunders was quick to insist such a move was not unusual for the players.

3

He added: “Even when I played for Liverpool in 1992 we had to stay in the hotel on Friday nights.

“At home games? Yeah, we’d stay in the hotel and Roy Evans and Ronnie Moran would come and they’d knock on your door about half past ten, right, two of them, and you’d open the door and they” I’ll pretend they have anti-inflammatories for you.

“So they would have tablets, Roy would have red ones and Ronnie would have blue ones. And they would turn red or blue, red or blue, so they would check your room.

“All they do is make sure you’re in your room and you’re not somewhere else drinking or something.”

Asked if he had ever snuck out, especially at Christmas, he added: “I never have.

“You look me in the eye. I’ve never drunk after a Thursday. Thursday night, no, seriously, I never have.

3

“I was too scared in case it made me do something stupid.”

Saunders, meanwhile, insists Man City will come back strong but warned against comments that English football needs a winter break.

He added: “The cream always comes to the top. The players he has are too good to hold them back for that long. But coming back to the winter holidays, it really annoys me. Pep was brought up with holidays of ‘winter.

“Just to show I’m not biased, I tried Jurgen Klopp, because people think I just won’t try at Liverpool. He used to say it, Avram Grant, do you remember him? “Let’s have a winter vacation.”

“You will never see him again. Gone. Never seen again. Let’s change all the rules in England, which is by the way the best league in the world.

“And our grandfather used to take us to football on Boxing Day, the festive period, which is great in English football. The fans love it. The players love it. The only people who don’t like it are managers.”

Asked if he found playing over the festive period difficult, Saunders added: “No, I just got used to it. Every Christmas Day we would practice. We would go on trips. C It’s your job.

“As a footballer, you have 10 months on, two months off, and you’re paid full time. So in the summer you’re paid to sit around, when everyone else is sweating at work in an office, you are on a boat somewhere and receiving your full salary So for the 10 months you work, which includes Easter break and Christmas break, we are the public’s entertainment.

“That’s why we get paid a fortune, because we perform, we are the entertainment of the holidays.”