Nathan Ake has shared what Pep Guardiola said to him after his first season at Manchester City.
After joining the Citizens from Bournemouth in a deal worth £41m during the 2020 summer transfer window, the centre-back went on to make just 13 appearances across all competitions.
Now in the midst of his fourth season at the Manchester club, the Dutchman has shared some behind-the-scenes details on what he was going through after his debut campaign with Guardiola’s side.
Ake shares what Guardiola told him after debut City season
Speaking in a recent interview with the Manchester Evening News, Ake had this to say about what Guardiola said to him after completing his first season at the Etihad Stadium.
He said: “After the first season a lot of times you thought are they even happy with me? They could have said it’s not what we want and go off somewhere else but they were always confident in me.
“Even the manager came up to me at the end of the first season and said ‘Don’t worry, you’ve had injuries, it’s not how we wanted it to go but next season is going to be very important for you. You can play in different positions so you’re going to be very important to us so keep going’.
“That gave me a lot of confidence and the trust I needed and from there I started to kick on. It shows that they still had the trust in me in difficult moments when I wasn’t at my best and sometimes as a footballer you need the confidence and the belief that you can do it.
“After that from the manager and from above from the club, you start to evolve. The second season I started to understand more what he wanted and feel better as I was playing, more relaxed as things started to come together. Then last season was when I was most comfortable and fully confident and ready to go.”
Looking back over the 2020/21 Premier League campaign, Ake’s performances in the 10 games he featured in earned him a rather underwhelming overall season rating of 6.57/10 from WhoScored, making him the fourth-lowest-rated City player.
This, and the injury issues he faced, makes it easy to see why he had some concerns about whether the club felt he was good enough to continue with them.
However, going from making just 10 league appearances in his debut season to 26 across the club’s previous campaign, which saw them win their latest Premier League title, shows just how important Ake has become for City since his difficult first term.
