Pep Guardiola says he has only had one perfect pre-season at Manchester City, with this year's tour disrupted by four players who did not travel to the USA.
City took a 26-man squad to Houston, but have lost Aleks Zinchenko, who is set to join Arsenal. Phil Foden, John Stones and Ilkay Gundogan did not travel as they didn't meet US entry requirements, and have travelled to Croatia with the under-23s, while Aymeric Laporte was injured so hasn't joined the group in the States.
Guardiola admitted that the situation was out of his hands, but said it meant he was not able to give his full squad the best preparation he would have wanted ahead of the new campaign.
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"Yes it’s disappointing, I would like them to be here," he said.
"Since our second season when we ended up with 100 points that was the only season when we were all together. Since then it’s always been four players arriving and then a week later another one. We started the season with incredible problems. Every year we drop points.
“This season I thought maybe we will be all together but due to the personal situation of these players. But it’s what it is, we are going to move forward and we have to adapt. Pre-season there can be three, four, five weeks but now it’s over.
"But they are fit, they are training with the Under 23s and they’ll come back and join us and they’ll be fine."
However, Guardiola did offer an insight into the training performances of his four new signings - Erling Haaland, Julian Alvarez, Kalvin Phillips and Stefan Ortega. While he said he was impressed with their starts to life at City, he also admitted that they will need time to adapt to life at the club.
“Step by step. It will not happen in one day or two days," he said.
“We cannot put too much pressure on these players. We need to get them houses, apartments in Manchester, and in the sessions what we want them to do will increase.
“The first impressions of Julian, Kalvin, Erling, and Stefan were really good – they seem like good people. Having good vibes in the locker room is more important than tactics.”
"I don’t think [Haaland is the missing link], we were the team who scored most goals in the country, not putting pressure on him and Julian, we’ll do it as a team, his numbers are unbelievable but he has to adapt, we are going to win and lose as a team, if you have to think about it."
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