Manchester City had several figures from their squad feature for their countries during the recent international break.
Specifically, players such as Jack Grealish, Rico Lewis, John Stones, Erling Haaland, Ruben Dias, Bernardo Silva, Kevin De Bruyne and Jeremy Doku were all in action over the past week for their national sides.
With domestic football now set to return this weekend, some details have emerged regarding what two particular City players who weren’t on international duty got up to ahead of Saturday’s Premier League match against Brentford at the Etihad Stadium.
- Man City 2024/25 squad cost in full: Transfer fees and stats for every player
Journalist shares what Kyle Walker and Ilkay Gundogan were doing in the international break
In a recent post shared on his X account, journalist Joe Bray had this to say on the matter.
He said: “No rest for [Kyle] Walker and [Ilkay] Gundogan over the international break. They’ve been training with the U21s to keep fit.
“And their mentality was better than any of the youngsters, impressing coaches and providing an invaluable lesson to the academy.”
Guardiola will be pleased with Walker and Gundogan
While Gundogan retired from the German national team after the 2024 European Championship, Walker was not chosen by Lee Carsley to be involved in England’s recent Nations League matches against Ireland and Finland.
In fact, Walker recently said that while he understood the decision due to him not playing any significant amount of football for City since the start of the season, he still said he wants to prove to Carsley what he can do.
Now that Bray has shared that the full-back and the midfielder have used the recent break to keep their fitness up and show some of the younger players at City what a top mentality looks like, this will undoubtedly delight Pep Guardiola.
Looking ahead to Saturday’s match against Brentford, it’ll be interesting to see if either Walker or Gundogan are given their first league starts of the season.
