City are inviting clubs to a behind-closed-doors game on Tuesday, showcasing up to 25 players available for transfer or loan this summer, according to @reluctantnicko.
Max Alleyne, Issa Kabore, Jaden and Reigan Heskey, Divin Mubama, Spike Brits, Charlie Gray and Divine Mukasa are among those set to feature, with Championship clubs and sides from across Europe expected to attend.
The fixture points to the scale of the squad rebuild Enzo Maresca and director of football Hugo Viana are working through this summer, with City having already reshaped large parts of the first-team squad through the arrivals of Elliot Anderson and Jeremy Monga, and departures including Manuel Akanji, Bernardo Silva and John Stones.
Several of the players understood to be involved already carry known transfer interest. Alleyne is being lined up for a Championship loan, having started senior games under Pep Guardiola last season but found himself squeezed out of contention at centre-back given the club’s current depth in that position.
Kabore has spent recent seasons out on loan, most recently at Werder Bremen. Mubama, a forward who arrived from West Ham last year, has yet to establish himself at first-team level.
Quicker route to a move…
A ‘shop window’ exercise of this kind, while unusual, is a practical solution to a familiar problem — City’s academy and fringe squad regularly produces more talent than can be accommodated within a 25-man Premier League squad, leaving both the club and the players needing a quicker route to interested parties than individual scouting visits or agent calls.
Showcasing a large group in a single, structured game allows visiting clubs to assess several options at once, before the domestic transfer market picks up pace following the end of the World Cup.
Nothing has been confirmed by the club, and no timeframe has been given for when any resulting moves might be completed.
