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 former Wolves full-back but was unable to prevent his side from slipping to a shock 2-0 defeat.
Pep Guardiola will hope to be able to call upon Ait-Nouri against the Seagulls and the £31million signing appears to be winning his fitness battle.
Ait-Nouri has been selected 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 join the group. Man City plan to have him play in the next match.’
City, meanwhile, are likely to face a Brighton team who are 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 start to the 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 is a number more than 100, I would even say more than 100. I am confident.’
The Seagulls host Manchester City on Sunday fresh from a 6-0 midweek victory at Oxford in the Carabao Cup where summer recruit Stefanos Tzimas struck twice.
Hurzeler is unsure if more additions will follow, though, during the final days of the transfer window.
‘I have a feeling that sometimes it is not so clever to share always the feeling you have in public but overall I am very happy with the squad,’ Hurzeler explained.
‘I have daily exchange with Tony (Bloom), with Paul (Barber), with David (Weir), so overall I’m very pleased with how the process went so far and let’s see if there might be any more changes.’
