Pep Guardiola’s shock reaction to current Arsenal star’s training complaint | Soccer

Zinchenko played under the Catalan at Manchester City before leaving to join Arsenal in 2022.

The Ukrainian was rarely a first-team regular, but made 128 appearances in all competitions for City and won four Premier League titles with the club.

He hasn’t always been in Guardiola’s good books, however, with the iconic manager unimpressed with the way Zinchenko responded to him in training.

The versatile defender and midfielder remembers misplacing a pass and Guardiola criticizing him for it, which he was not happy about, but quickly regretted his response.

“Out loud I said, ‘Sir! Like, I just had a bad time, you know? And his reaction was incredible,” Zinchenko wrote in his new book Believe, via The Guardian.

” “Oh, okay, sorry, sorry, Mr. Zinchenko. Sorry,” said Pep. “Okay, guys, thanks to everyone inside.” And he walked in, headed towards the locker room. Training is over, all because I answered .I knew I was in trouble.

Zinchenko was not in the starting XI for the next match and he added: “Look, first of all, I wasn’t right. I understood straight away, but it would have been stupid to go straight at his office and apologize. It was game day minus one and I knew he was totally focused on the game plan. But I apologized after the game.

After the Ukrainian swapped Manchester for north London, his former club won the treble in the 2022/23 season, winning the Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup.

In a sign of how their relationship has improved significantly since that training day, Guardiola called Zinchenko to thank him for his work at City despite leaving the club the summer before the treble.

“I can only imagine how much they celebrated after the match, and I guess no one was sleeping that night, but to get a call from Pep? I couldn’t believe it,” Zinchenko said.