Sweet scents and calming music – Pep Guardiola's office oddities revealed by Antoine Semenyo

Pep Guardiola immediately put Antoine Semenyo at ease with sweet scents and calming music when they first met at Manchester City.

Guardiola, 55, has the reputation of being a taskmaster. And while Semenyo has seen that side of the legendary coach too, he was taken aback to find his new boss was such an accommodating host.

Speaking to In The Mixer, brought to you by Sky Bet, Semenyo detailed his first visit inside the Catalan's quarters: "He was just so energetic. Went into his office, he’s got soft music playing in the background, smells so nice in his office.

“He was just like, 'We’re happy to have you here. Continue your fine form here and hopefully [we’ll] compete for the league'.”

However, Semenyo almost tripped himself up in front of his new team-mates when one of Pep's nervous habits caught him off guard.

"He is generally relaxed, to be fair," he added. "It’s when you get into the meetings, that’s where he’s serious.

"I remember the first [team] meeting I had and he was just pacing in front of the meeting room. [I was] thinking, ‘Is this normal?’ Looking back, no-one’s laughing or anything, so I’m on my own here. But he’s just so passionate."

Semenyo has started his life at the Etihad on fire with eight goals and three assists in 19 outings. But not all of his best assets are being put to good use.

The 26-year-old was regularly called upon for long-throw duties at Bournemouth to good effect. However, he has been banned from chucking the ball in the box under Guardiola.

Title rivals Arsenal have become the Premier League's set-piece kings this term with long throws and corners causing carnage. But it's not a weapon he envisions Guardiola will allow anytime soon.

Semenyo said: "Yeah, I have got a long throw. I don’t know where, how [I got it]. Maybe it’s because I’m so strong…

"It was Andoni [Iraola] who saw it and was like, ‘Phwoar, we’ve got to use it. We’ve got to use it’. I don’t think Pep wants to see long throws, I’ll be honest.

"Some of the boys will be like, ‘You gonna take a long throw?’ And I’m like, ‘I dunno’. Because obviously Pep wants to keep it on the floor..."

Semenyo has soon-to-depart Bournemouth boss Iraola to thank for much of his development over the past few campaigns. And he outlined one similarity between Iraola and new boss Guardiola, which flies in the face of speculation that Pep trains the creativity out of certain stars, like Jack Grealish or Phil Foden.

When asked about the biggest impact Iraola had on his game, Semenyo said: "Just playing more free. A lot of our training sessions were chaos and you kind of got to do what you want as a person.

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"I was just freestyling, doing different things and [Andoni] was like, ‘You should do it in a game’. And I’m like, ‘You want me to do rainbow flicks and stuff in a game?’ He said, ‘Yeah, if you want to. Just play free, just be yourself’.

"From that day, I’ve always just been free. And I still stick to what he said today with the Man City team. Just being free and enjoying myself."

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