FOOTBALL: Pep Guardiola warns Riyad Mahrez won’t play for Manchester City until his fitness improves

Pep Guardi­o­la has told Riyad Mahrez he needs to be fit­ter after a rocky start to the sea­son at Man­ches­ter City.

The £60million play­er, who was signed by the cham­pi­ons to a three-year deal this sum­mer, has yet to prove it was the right decision.

With Phil Foden, Jack Gre­al­ish and Bernar­do Sil­va occu­py­ing wing posi­tions, he has start­ed just two of eight Pre­mier League games.

Guardi­o­la says the Alger­ian needs to shine again, but sug­gests he’s not at the right fit­ness lev­el to play regularly.

“He has to come back in bet­ter shape so he can give his best as a play­er,” said the Man­ches­ter City boss.

“He’s so good I can’t teach him any­thing. He knows it and I know Riyadh per­fect­ly. We need him.”

“He has to come back to the high­est lev­el. In terms of his char­ac­ter, his qual­i­ty, his tech­nique, his love of the game and the way he likes to play. Step by step, he’s back.”

Marez’s usu­al posi­tion on the right of the front three was replaced on Sun­day by Foden, who scored a fairy­tale hat-trick against Man­ches­ter United.

And Guardi­o­la has wel­comed the news that the young British play­er is close to sign­ing a five-year deal at the Etihad.

“He’s a young play­er, so we want him to stay for years and years. He’s an excep­tion­al play­er. He’s grown a lot.” He’s been with us for years now. “.

“He’s phys­i­cal­ly reli­able, he’s pas­sion­ate about every­thing, he’s smart, he can play once every three days. I think he can do better.

Pep also hint­ed that he’s hop­ing the 22-year-old will shine for Eng­land at next mon­th’s World Cup.

He said, “Phil’s impact when I came in was ‘amaz­ing.’ Even in his sec­ond sea­son, he got to play in impor­tant games.

“He does­n’t feel pres­sured. Like Bernar­do Sil­va, the big­ger the stage, the bet­ter he plays.”

Erling Haa­land also scored a hat-trick and new sign­ing Ser­gio Gomez says the Nor­we­gian is unde­ni­ably hungry.

The Spain Under-21 star, who was also a tem­po­rary team-mate at Borus­sia Dort­mund, said: “I try to learn as much as I can from him, espe­cial­ly his hunger and ambition.

“He’s not sat­is­fied with one goal, he wants a sec­ond, a third, he wants more. In the der­by the oth­er day, after con­ced­ing the third goal, he was a lit­tle angry. rice field.

“It’s impor­tant to learn the hunger and ambi­tion he has.