• Manager laments club’s £3m fines for late second halves

• Burna Boy pre-show ‘made Champions League final late’

Pep Guardiola has lamented the Premier League’s strict rules that have led to Manchester City being fined more than £3m for 30 late second-half restarts in the past three seasons, jokingly bemoaning that Burna Boy did not suffer a similar fate after delaying the kick-off in the 2023 Champions League final.

City play at Newcastle on Saturday evening, beginning a hectic schedule in which they will play twice a week until mid-January. They travelled to the north-east on Friday afternoon, leading to a change in routine at the Etihad Campus and an early pre-match press conference in order to comply with Premier League rules and avoid another punitive fee.