Nathan Ake interview: ‘You would think Pep Guardiola could chill – but he will not allow that’
After an extraordinary 60-game season in which Manchester City became just the second English club in history to win the treble of Premier League title, European Cup and FA Cup, it would have been understandable had the players eased off a touch this term.
And then Nathan Ake reminds you that their manager is Pep Guardiola and the idea of slackening off is simply alien to such a serial winner.
“I don’t know how he does it,” the City and Netherlands defender says with a mixture of awe and wonder. “The things he’s won, you would think you could chill, but he just doesn’t allow that.
“He wants more and more and straight away. If you have someone in front of you with that mindset, then the team takes that with them as well.
“We’re never satisfied and, even this season, we want to go again. The manager says it every day that he wants us to go again and automatically you take that and everyone wants it.”
In truth, that was apparent after City’s opening 45 minutes of the season in the 3-0 win at Burnley. Erling Haaland, who had put City 2-0 in front inside 36 minutes, was angry at Bernardo Silva for denying him the chance of a hat-trick by not playing him through late in the first period.
Guardiola took a different view and, as soon as the half-time whistle sounded, stormed over to his star striker to tell him, with that usual manic intensity, why he was wrong – and his team-mate was right. And that was in public.
Ake shoots you a look that suggests the rollickings dished out in private are something else entirely. “Oh yes, 100 per cent,” he says, blowing his cheeks out before laughing. “It doesn’t matter if we win, if we play bad…
“This season we have had games where, from the outside, it looked like [it was] all bad and there were moments where you would think he would kill us.
“But he came in the meetings and would say, ‘We played well, a couple of things maybe [we could have done better] but you’ve done well so don’t listen to the outside stuff’.
“[The 2-2 draw against Crystal] Palace recently, for example, where it looked bad but Pep showed us clips and the way we played was actually all right.
“But then you also have games where the outside [world] says it was perfect and we won 3-0 or something and he hammers you because there are things in the game he didn’t like.”
The point is Guardiola is never sated. Already this season City have added the European Super Cup and, last month, a first Club World Cup to the collection and Ake believes the players take extra motivation from the manager’s relentless approach.
“Every player in this team has it anyway but Pep tops it off with his stature and all the prizes he has won,” Ake says. “To have someone in front of you who still pushes you every day brings us to the next level.”
City, of course, have not had it all their own way this season. A five-week blip in the lead-up to Christmas led to Guardiola’s side mustering just seven points from six games, with a 1-0 defeat at Aston Villa following three successive draws against Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham and prompting the players’ leadership team to call a meeting of the squad.
Nonetheless, City’s title rivals were unable to take full advantage of their struggles during that period and, if they beat Newcastle at St James’ Park on Saturday, the champions will trail leaders Liverpool by just two points.
“We struggled a bit at one point but the gap is not too big so that motivated us as well,” Ake says. “[The attitude was] ‘Ok, win these two games [Everton and Sheffield United] and we’re there again and can compete again knowing normally towards the end of the season we start to kick on and hopefully we’re going to do the same. But there’s still a long way to go. Liverpool look really strong. Arsenal as well are still there after two losses [to West Ham and Fulham].”
Ake admits the prospect of making yet more history by becoming the first English club to win four consecutive titles is a huge source of motivation for the City squad. “Yes it is because this has never been done before,” he says. “We know that as a team it would be incredible to do.”
If last season was an historic one for City, it also happened to be the best of Ake’s career and he has continued that fine form into this season, embracing the added competition provided by the arrival of the second most expensive defender ever in a way only the best do.
“Even though we won the treble, that’s the power of this club – they don’t just relax and think, ‘Oh, we’re good’,” Ake says of the £77 million signing of Josko Gvardiol from RB Leipzig.
“They go for the next one and the next one and the next one and I think that’s a good thing. Because those new players are 100 per cent hungry to win their first Premier League title and that brings everyone up a level again.”
It was 12 months ago that Guardiola said after a 4-2 win at home to Tottenham that City could not play without Ake. It was not hyperbole. At the time, the team were still getting to grips with the move to a 3-2-4-1 system but Ake was a model of consistency amid the inconsistency.
“Last season wasn’t a breakthrough but it was my best year so far,” he says. “My first season [at City] wasn’t great. I had to learn a lot, get through injuries and it was a season to forget. The second season I started to understand more what the manager 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.”
It is amazing to think now that Ake could have been playing in a different shade of blue that season. Chelsea had tried to re-sign the Dutchman the previous summer but he never forgot the faith Guardiola showed in him after a difficult first 12 months when his future was being questioned.
“After the first season a lot of times you thought, ‘Are they even happy with me?” Ake recalls. “They could have said, ‘It’s not what we want’ and gone off somewhere else but they were always confident in me. 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 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.
“Yes, for sure [you remember that when another team shows interest]. It shows that they still had the trust in me in difficult moments when I wasn’t at my best.
“Since I came, the way I have grown personally in every aspect – on the ball, off the ball, tactically – is a different level. The manager takes every game so seriously. He’s a massive part of my development.”
Away from football, Ake finds relaxation playing the piano. The arrival of a baby daughter 14 months ago may have wreaked havoc with the time he has to practise but he has made a promise to himself to change that this year.
“I’m getting worse because since the little one came along I haven’t really had time to practise,” Ake says. “But I said to my wife [Kaylee] my new year’s resolution is to start properly again.”
He enjoys playing songs by the Italian pianist and composer Ludovico Einaudi and his South Korean counterpart, Yiruma, and is not the only Dutch footballer with a talent for tickling the ivories. Ake and Stefan de Vrij both have small electronic pianos in their rooms whenever they are away on international duty, although their love for the instrument was not shared by everyone at the Euros a few years ago.
“At one point they brought in a proper piano but players would be resting and all they heard was Stefan and I playing so they got rid of it,” Ake explains, chuckling. “Everyone got sick of us. It was nice relaxation for us, though.”
Ake was only 14 when Guardiola’s Barcelona won six trophies in 2009. Fourteen years on, he is still coming to terms with being part of a Guardiola-managed City side who won five trophies in 2023. “When you see teams like that [Barcelona] winning so many prizes you just think it is incredible,” he says.
“To be able to do that and say that yourself is still something that is hard to realise. The only time you will realise properly is after your career when you start to look back to see what you achieved.”
For now, though, he is looking only forward – and dreaming of more silverware to come.
