Manchester City are sweating on the fitness of Rayan Ait-Nouri ahead of Sunday’s Premier League game against Brighton.
The summer signing from Wolves sustained an ankle injury on his home debut last weekend against Tottenham.
Nathan Ake replaced the previous Wolves full-back but was unable to forestall his side from slipping to a shock 2-0 defeat.
Pep Guardiola will hope to give you the option to call upon Ait-Nouri against the Seagulls and the £31million signing appears to be winning his fitness battle.
Ait-Nouri has been chosen in Algeria’s squad ahead of the upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Botswana and Guinea next week and his national team manager, Vladimir Petkovic, issued a positive bulletin on Thursday.
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He said: ‘Ait-Nouri had an injury. The doctors said it’s not serious. He has trained to hitch the group. Man City plan to have him play in the following match.’
City, meanwhile, are prone to face a Brighton team who’re ultra confident of retaining the services of key midfielder Carlos Baleba.
Highly rated midfielder Baleba was linked with Manchester United earlier this summer but a move has yet to materialise.
United’s poor begin to the brand new campaign has prompted fresh speculation Ruben Amorim may come back in for the Cameroon international with a big-money offer.
But asked if he was 100 per cent confident Baleba would stay, Hurzeler told a press conference: ‘Yes. If there may be a number greater than 100, I’d even say greater than 100. I’m confident.’
The Seagulls host Manchester City on Sunday fresh from a 6-0 midweek victory at Oxford within the Carabao Cup where summer recruit Stefanos Tzimas struck twice.
Hurzeler is unsure if more additions will follow, though, throughout the final days of the transfer window.
‘I even have a sense that sometimes it shouldn’t be so clever to share all the time the sensation you will have in public but overall I’m very comfortable with the squad,’ Hurzeler explained.
‘I even have each day exchange with Tony (Bloom), with Paul (Barber), with David (Weir), so overall I’m very happy with how the method went to this point and let’s see if there is likely to be any more changes.’
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