Phil Foden could get the biggest boost yet at Man City this summer

Just like last season, pre-season is approaching with doubts over the futures of a handful of Manchester City players.

This time 12 months ago City decided to sell Raheem Sterling to Chelsea and Gabriel Jesus to Arsenal for £92.5m combined, while Aleks Zinchenko was on the plane to Houston for the first leg of the pre-season tour, even joining in community events. The Ukrainian then left Texas for Florida to meet his new Arsenal teammates on their own tour, leaving City another player light in their preparations for the new season.

The attacking departures were easily-solved. Erling Haaland and Julian Alvarez had already arrived to take the places of Sterling and Jesus in the squad, but the exit of Zinchenko left a vacancy at full-back.

Joao Cancelo was the obvious successor, while Nathan Ake remained at City after being linked with a move to Chelsea - and he would later end the season as first-choice left-back. At the same time, Rico Lewis was impressing so much as part of the academy players on tour that he would go on to play a key role in the treble-winning campaign.

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This season, there are more rumours of key players leaving. Bernardo Silva is never far from the transfer reports as he would prefer to leave Manchester, while Aymeric Laporte, Riyad Mahrez and Cancelo are also not guaranteed to remain at City beyond the transfer deadline.

Of those, Mahrez has been subject of reports that a bid from Al Ahli are readying a bid for around £30m. The Athletic claims that Mahrez has not decided on his future, and the two years left on his contract mean he could yet stay in Manchester.

Should he leave, though, it