How Man City should line up vs Club America

Manchester City will face Club America on Thursday morning in the first game of their pre-season tour of the United States.

Pep Guardiola's side will take on the Mexican outfit at Houston's NRG Stadium at 1:30am (UK time) on Thursday morning (8:30pm local time on Wednesday) ,looking to get their preparations for the 2022/23 season off to a winning start. The Blues will then travel north to Green Bay, Wisconsin to face Bayern Munich on Saturday, before returning to the UK for the Community Shield meeting with Liverpool on 30 July.

Guardiola has 26 players from which to select his starting XI from, although he will have to make do without Phil Foden, John Stones, Ilkay Gundogan and Aymeric Laporte, none of whom travelled to the US. Our team of City writers have had their say on who should start for City in Houston, and you can too, using the selector at the bottom:

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Simon Bajkowski

It is always better to play youngsters alongside established regulars in order to bed them in more easily, yet equally it will be a better test to start a match rather than come on once the game may already have been decided.

With CJ Egan-Riley signed for Burnley and City showing no signs of growing their full-back department it is worth testing out Rico Lewis given that Kyle Walker is naturally one of the fittest players in the squad. Luke Mbete will also hope for minutes this season, while James McAtee and Cole Palmer are out to make an impressions.

Julian Alvarez will need to adapt to City but is already fit, whereas Jack Grealish will be looking to prepare for a big season ahead and the absence of Phil Foden makes his pick on the left wing easier.

Jo