Manchester City youngsters aim to shine in pre-season as launchpad to first-team progress

Erling Haaland, Jack Grealish and other star names in Manchester City's treble-winning squad reported back to work on Monday with just 24 days to prepare for the start of the 2023/24 Premier League campaign and their quest for a fourth successive English title.

As freshly installed champions of Europe, they have added the Super Cup in Greece (August 16) and Fifa Club World Cup in Saudi Arabia (December 12-22) to their already packed fixture list.

However, despite that additional workload, City boss Pep Guardiola is unlikely to demand a much larger playing squad, preferring instead to continue to work with a smaller core unit as he has over the past two seasons.

He will, though, be more than happy to give youth team players the opportunity to train with his senior squad and force their way into his matchday thinking, the way defender Rico Lewis did last term.

And the fresh batch of Academy products are likely to get their first chance to shine and taste life on the road under Guardiola as City tour Japan and South Korea ahead of the Community Shield, the English season curtain-raiser, against Arsenal at Wembley Stadium on August 6.

City play Yokohama Marinos – part of the City Football Group – on July 23 and Bayern Munich on July 26 in Japan before heading to Seoul for a contest against Atletico Madrid on July 30.

With Kevin de Bruyne injured, Ilkay Gundogan departed for Barcelona and Guardiola favouring a light summer workload for his big names, the youngsters are likely to play a prominent role in those fixtures.

So who are the likely lads set to try to emulate Phil Foden, Cole Palmer and Lewis and vault into prominence with the English and European champions?

Top of the list will be Oscar Bobb, who could become the second Norwegian regular in the squad alongside Ballon d’Or favourite and record-breaking striker Haaland.

Bobb, a 19-year-old attacking midfielder who joined from Valarenga in 2019, was named City’s Under-21 player of the season on two occasions and is a regular in the Norway U21 side. He scored eight times last season and added 18 assists as City won the Premier League 2 for the third time in a row.

Others pushing for inclusion are Carlos Borges, Dire Mebude, Nico O’Reilly, Lakyle Samuel, and Max Alleyne.

Portugal youth international Borges, 19, is perhaps the most advanced of these having been named the club’s top performer at Under-18 level in 2021. The goal scoring winger, who trades on his pace and trickery, has attracted summer transfer interest from Bournemouth and Southampton.

Striker Mebude, 19, is a Scotland Under-21 international while 18-year-old O’Reilly has been at City since the he was eight and made the step up into the club’s Elite Development squad two years ahead of schedule. Essentially an attacking midfielder, he can operate in a number of positions.

At 17, Samuel and Alleyne are the youngest players knocking on the door. Samuel has shone as a right-back and central defender while Alleyne has caught the eye as a centre-half. Both will be encouraged by Lewis' progression and impact under Guardiola last season.

City will also welcome back 20-year-old James McAtee from his loan at Sheffield United. McAtee made 37 appearances in the Championship, scoring nine times as the Blades won promotion to the Premier League. He is likely to have the pre-season and beyond before a decision is taken whether he stays with Guardiola’s squad or goes out on loan again.

The same applies to Argentine defensive midfielder Max Perrone, 20, who made his Premier League debut as a substitute in the away win at Bournemouth in February. He was subsequently named in several matchday squads and has even earned a call up to the Argentina senior squad. Perrone is expected to feature prominently in pre-season games.

Decisions, too, will have to be made on several other young players who could raise substantial sums in the transfer market.

Those include 21-year-old Taylor Harwood-Bellis, who has just led England to the U21 European Championship title and who has already had loans at Blackburn, Anderlecht, Stoke and Burnley where he played 32 times in their Championship title-winning campaign under City legend Vincent Kompany and Tommy Doyle who, like McAtee, spent last season on loan at Sheffield United making 33 appearances.

Goalkeeper James Trafford, meanwhile, is set for a £19 million move to Burnley after impressing in a loan spell at Bolton Wanderers and then becoming England’s penalty saving hero in their Euro U21 success. City have also sold Northern Ireland international 19-year-old Shea Charles to Southampton while another 19-year-old, Callum Doyle, has joined Leicester City on loan.

The youngsters’ successes on the pitch and high profile on the transfer market point firmly to City’s Academy paying rich dividends in terms of players forging long-term careers and in raising revenues.

In the last two windows alone the Academy, formerly run by Premier League winner Jason Wilcox, who left this summer to be Southampton’s director of football operations, produced around £60 million in profit for the treble winners.

The windfall has been in excess of £300 million over the past 10 years and will only increase if Trafford, Charles, Harwood-Bellis, and Doyle are sold this summer.

Last season, despite buying Haaland, Kalvin Phillips, Manuel Akanji, Sergio Gomez, Julian Alvarez and Perrone, City were the only side in the Premier League’s "big six" with a negative net spend.

Man City 2022/23 season ratings