Jack Gaughan provides fascinating behind-the-scenes insight into Manchester City’s new-look training sessions

Manchester City’s training sessions in the United States for the ongoing FIFA Club World Cup have taken a very different approach to routines of recent months.

Pep Guardiola and his players are currently gearing up for yet another challenge across European competition, but face a very different build-up to the main football calendar this time around.

With FIFA opting to expand and rebrand the Club World Cup, Manchester City find themselves at the centre of a 32-team competition in the United States, battling it out for a prize pot in excess of £100 million and the title of ‘World Champions’.

Alongside the new faces embedded into the playing squad in time for the start of the competition, City have also shaken up their coaching structure working alongside Pep Guardiola in Boca Raton, Florida and the the forthcoming European campaign.

And with fresh energy and footballing vision required after a hugely difficult last season that resulted in no major trophies for Guardiola’s all-conquering Manchester City squad, it appears as though the new faces have provided exactly that in the United States so far this summer.

According to an account provided by MailSport’s Jack Gaughan from a recent Manchester City training session in Boca Raton, newly-appointed assistant manager Pepijn Lijnders was seen ‘prowling, noticing each pass’.

In total, there were said to be 19 members of staff within the perimeter of the pitch on which City were training, helping in some way, with ‘booming encouragement’ for the players that has ‘not always been evident’ during training. 

It is further noted that more peripheral members of the Manchester City backroom setup were ‘screaming positive reinforcement’, ‘loud’ and ‘more in your face’, presenting energy that is no doubt needed off the back of last season’s immense disappointment.

Sources are quoted within the report as stating that ‘everything has doubled’, with the overall intensity up, and staff members ‘on them’ more with players said to be responding and notably ‘talking up’ Jurgen Klopp’s former assistant Lijnders among themselves.

Manchester City and the new-look coaching staff structure have already successfully extended their stay at the FIFA Club World Cup by qualifying for the last-16 stage of the competition thanks to two wins from their opening three group stage games.

A 2-0 win over Moroccan side Wydad AC in Philadelphia was followed by a dominant 6-0 victory over the UAE’s Al Ain in Atlanta, although the failure to score a seventh goal in that game means a win is required on matchday three to secure top spot in the group.

Juventus are the final opponents for Manchester City in the group stage, who themselves have enjoyed a strong start to the competition and will also be hoping for a first-place finish to face runners-up in Group H – current unconfirmed out of Real Madrid, RB Salzburg, and Al-Hilal.