GET THE JUICES ..GOING
New Gunners boss Emery bans sugary drinks in crackdown on players’ diets
UNAI EMERY has banned juice and clamped down on players’ diets, as part of a major fitness shake-up at Arsenal.
The Gunners boss has got tough in the canteen, as well as on the pitch, to try and improve his squad’s performance levels.
It has also seen Emery introduce more intense training, more one-on-one sessions with players, and shake-up gym work at the club’s London Colney HQ.
Emery has had a marquee installed at the side of the training pitches with gym equipment on hand, so the players can mix up cardio work with their training, to keep things different and interesting. The sessions have been tough and demanding to keep in line with Emery’s high-press tactics, which require formidable levels of fitness.
Players have been impressed with Emery’s approach, but the manager knows it will be difficult to keep pushing them to the maximum for the whole season.
Former boss Arsene Wenger was renowned for changing the players’ diets after arriving in English football in 1996. He cut out all the booze and junk food, and introduced baked chicken, fish and steamed vegetables.
But Wenger did allow the players high-carbohydrate treats, the club even publishing the recipe for banoffee pie in the matchday programme.
However, Emery has introduced strict weighing sessions, body fat measurements, and science to monitor levels, with the diet even more strict and juice – with high levels of sugar – being replaced by water.
Emery and his assistant Juan Carlos Carcedo, plus Steve Bould, have also worked closely with players as they try to impose their methods.
They have done intense one-onone sessions on the training pitch, as well as talking to them privately. That has already been the case with Mesut Ozil and Aaron Ramsey. Emery has made it clear to Ozil he expects more from the German midfielder and faces a dilemma over whether to recall him for Arsenal’s trip to Cardiff on Sunday.
Ozil called in sick last Friday, on the eve of Arsenal’s win over West Ham.