Pep Guardiola has confirmed that summer signing Erling Braut Haaland is in line to make his Manchester City debut against Bayern Munich on Sunday morning (GMT) if he comes through their final training session unscathed.
The Norwegian striker, who celebrated his 22nd birthday on Thursday, joined the Citizens on July 1 after his £51m release clause in his Borussia Dortmund contract was activated.
Haaland has since been training with his new teammates on their pre-season tour of the USA, along with fellow new recruits Julian Alvarez, Kalvin Phillips and Stefan Ortega.
City's new number nine was an unused substitute in the 2-1 friendly victory over Mexican outfit Club America on Thursday, but Guardiola has confirmed that the striker "will play" against Bayern if he remains fit.
"If this afternoon there is nothing wrong in the training session, or tonight he feels bad and falls out of bed and breaks his ankle, then he will play," Guardiola said at a press conference on Saturday.
The Spaniard has also assessed City's transfer business so far this summer and is delighted with the makeup of his squad heading into the new campaign.
"So far I am so excited and so happy [with my squad]," Guardiola added. "Sometimes the market was strange for us. Normally we are a team that buy and didn't sell much. This summer for different reasons, we sell some players.
"Sometimes you want to do it but you can't. This summer it happened so quick. not just first-team players – academy and loan players. New players have come and we continue with them.
"One of the things I am trying to discover is if he is a nice guy. I don't like to work much with guys who are not nice.
"When you have a locker room and the chemistry is good, that is worth more than hours of tactics. This summer we have bought some exceptional people. And the rest we know each other.
"We are sad because Raheem [Sterling], Gabriel [Jesus] and [Oleksandr Zinchenko] were incredibly beloved. Since I arrived in Manchester, the chemistry has been incredible. It makes things good for me."
While Guardiola could play all four of his new arrivals against Bayern on Sunday, the City boss is unable to call upon Phil Foden, John Stones and Ilkay Gundogan who are all training with the Under-23s in Croatia after failing to meet the USA entry requirements.
Guardiola has revealed that he is in daily contract with academy coach Brian Barry-Murphy to keep up to date with their progress in pre-season.
"[Foden, Stones and Gundogan have] trained really well," said Guardiola, "I have an update every day with Brian, the manager of the EDS (Elite Development Squad).
"Knowing John, Ilkay and Phil, they are like this. Tomorrow they come back to Manchester like us and on Tuesday they will start training with us ahead of the Community Shield."
City's clash with Bayern is their final pre-season friendly in the States before they return to England to face Liverpool at the King Power Stadium for the Community Shield next Saturday. body check tags ::
