Manchester City’s struggling stars were forced to sleep at the club’s training ground overnight ahead of their 12.30pm Boxing Day showdown with Everton.
According to Daily Mail, Pep Guardiola revealed that his charges will be dragged away from their family homes and insisted he hopes they embrace the measure with open arms.
City have lost nine of their last 12 matches, the worst run of Guardiola’s managerial career, and last tasted victory on December 4 against Nottingham Forest.
They debuted the overnight sleeping measure in 2014, becoming the first Premier League club to do so, effectively using the ‘Etihad Campus’ as a hotel the night before lunchtime kick-off home games. Their base has 80 bedrooms with sleep-enhancing wallpaper, while £150,000 was spent on mattresses and pillows.
“We train today (Tuesday), we train tomorrow (Wednesday) night, we will stay over here and we are going to play on Boxing Day,” said Guardiola.
“Hopefully they want to be here, because it’s our job.”
Everton have proved their mettle in recent times with a 4-0 win over Wolves before holding Arsenal and Chelsea to 0-0 draws.
City are hoping to arrest an alarming loss of form which has seen them slip to seventh in the Premier League and four points off fourth-placed Forest.
They had only lost nine in their previous 106 games before this torrid 12-match spell which has seen them suffer defeat as many times.
City are bottom of the Premier League form table over the last eight games having picked up a paltry four points – one less than next-worst Southampton, who recently sacked Russell Martin and replaced him with Ivan Juric.
