Manchester City to field Under-23 players in Community Shield

Pep Guardiola has confirmed that Manchester City will be fielding Under-23 players when they take on Leicester City in the Community Shield. 

The game - which takes place every year between the winners of the Premier League and the FA Cup - will be played at Wembley Stadium on Saturday 7 August. 

City have had a disrupted pre-season so far with almost all of their first team players competing at Euro 2020, the Copa America or in other international matches. According to Simon Bajkowski, Guardiola is concerned about testing them in a semi-competitive game against the Foxes and is planning to make use of his development side. 

He told in-house media on Tuesday: "I know we don't have time because in 10 or 11 days we have the Community Shield and we have just three players but we are going to play with the second team and we are going to try."

City have only had one pre-season friendly so far, against Preston North End on Tuesday. They are next in action on Saturday where they will take on Barnsley. Guardiola went on to explain that the fixture will be vital in getting his charges up to speed ahead of their Premier League curtain-raiser against Tottenham on Sunday 15 August. 

Some of the Under-23s that could be handed game time next Saturday include Liam Delap, Cole Palmer and Tommy Doyle, all of whom have been around the first team in the past. 

City’s youngsters are in for a tough game against Leicester, who will be keen to start the season strongly. After missing out on the top four on the final day of the season for the second year running, they have brought in several impressive new signings. 

Highly-rated forward Patson Daka, midfielder Boubakary Soumare and ex-Southampton man Ryan Bertrand could all be in line for starts.