City acquires goalie Bravo from Barcelona on 4-year deal

Hart, first-choice Citizens keeper for almost a decade, has not featured in the Premier League since Pep Guardiola’s arrival, with the Spaniard preferring to field Willy Cabalero in goal. Hart has already been told by Guardiola that he can leave City, and the Spanish coach said on Friday the club will help him secure a move away this transfer window.

Everton manager Ronald Koeman says that reports linking the club with Manchester City’s Joe Hart are false and that he has no intention of pursuing the player.

“I was lucky to have under my command Chilean players like Alexis Sanchez (at Barca) and Arturo Vidal (at Bayern Muncih) before, and now Claudio Bravo”. I said many times in the press conference, you deserve to play.

Guardiola has nearly a fully-fit squad from which to choose, with 30 players having taken part in training on Friday.

One area where Guardiola wants his players to pay more attention to is in being mindful of the new rules over shirt-pulling in the penalty area. Everybody needs to play and I know his quality, ‘ said Guardiola, who sold Toure to City when he was manager of Barcelona. “Some things happened in the first half, but we changed it and it was better in the second half – our passing lines, the system that we played”.

Slaven Bilic’s West Ham will head north still smarting from their premature exit from the Europa League at the hands of Astra Giurgiu.

Slaven Bilic has not given up on a potential loan deal for Wilfried Bony despite landing £25million Simone Zaza from Juventus. “We’ve been trying for a long time now to get a top-quality striker and he was always mentioned”.

Bilic also expects Dimitri Payet and Manuel Lanzini to be close to full fitness but will not risk both playmakers. “It would be a dream because everyone is happy but unfortunately there are injuries, we have to compete every three days”, he said.

Guardiola said of Bravo: “He’s fit but he’s not going to play this weekend”. The full-backs are pushed higher, creative players are being asked to defend from the front and each member of the team ran on average a kilometre further at Stoke last weekend than they did in the corresponding fixture last season.

“Of course if there is no risk we would pick them, but there is a big question mark”. They are going to be in rotation, part of that.