Christmas Day off for Pep’s busy stars

CITY players will have Christmas Day off as Pep Guardiola looks to prepare his players for the festive fixture slog.

The Premier League champions face the tough prospect of playing sixthplaced Wolves and fifth-placed Sheffield United inside 48 hours after Christmas.

Having rested up yesterday, City are back in training today and tomorrow before having the evening of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off. It is then back to the training ground to prepare for two tough fixtures.

Only Wolves, Leicester, Bournemouth and Newcastle have less than the 46 hours and 15 minutes that the Blues have between their games following the TV scheduling.

Guardiola joked after Leicester that he personally had written a letter of thanks as he explained the plans.

“I wrote a letter to the Premier

League to say thank you and we are going to the fridge after Wolves to get ready for Sheffield United,” the manager said.

“We are training on the 23rd and 24th. The night of the 24th is off, 25th off, then 26th training and 27th we have Nuno’s team.”

Kevin De Bruyne will look to continue his strong form over the Christmas period.

“The first game is okay, the other one - I don’t know what to do. We’ll see how everybody feels after 48 hours,” he said of the festive schedule.

“Normally it would be impossible to play, but it’s the schedule and we just have to find a way to manage but we’ll see what happens.

“Hopefully everybody feels alright for these two games, but obviously we’re going to have to change a few players.”