Pep Guardiola is confident Erling Haaland and the rest of Manchester City's new signings will settle in swiftly, though he acknowledged the Premier League champions have lost some key players.
Club stalwart Fernandinho left when his contract expired at the end of last season, and City have sold three other players who played a role in Guardiola's success, with Raheem Sterling joining Chelsea while Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko departed for Arsenal.
City already have most of their replacements through the door. Julian Alvarez was signed in January and has now linked up with the squad, while a deal was struck with Borussia Dortmund for prolific striker Haaland in May.
Kalvin Phillips has been signed from Leeds United to bolster City's midfield and Stefan Ortega has joined as a back-up goalkeeper, facilitating a loan move to Middlesbrough for Zack Steffen.
City's new recruits could get their first taste of competitive action on Saturday, when Guardiola's side face FA Cup winners Liverpool in the Community Shield.
Though he has been impressed with how quickly the new arrivals have started their City careers, Guardiola emphasised how important the players who have moved on were to his squad.
He told a news conference: "If you analyse what happened in the last years, without these important players it would be difficult to imagine it. We wish all of them the best.
"New people arrived, they settled quickly, down to earth and very humble people. We are going to try, this is Manchester City, we are all of us, we try to be a competitive team, to win our first title.
"It's an honour to compete again [for the Community Shield], we will try to do a good game against an opponent we know well, it will dictate a little bit how is our moment, our level. Two, three weeks of pre-season is too short, but I saw many good things in this period."
Asked if it would take time for his new players to adapt, Guardiola said: "Hopefully not, the quicker they settle the better. It's my feeling they will not take time.
"Stefan surprised us a lot, how good he is on the ball and with our build-up, Kalvin knows the Premier League perfectly. The way they've listened, behaved, the minutes they've played. I think they'll settle quickly."
Guardiola was pressed on whether this was a "reset" the squad required, but the former Bayern Munich and Barcelona boss stressed that was not necessarily the case.
"Sometimes the transfer market dictates what you want to do," he explained. "The first season when we arrived we tried to loan, sell players and could not. This year I do not know what happened.
"Sometimes you want to do things, but it depends not just how good or bad we are but on the situations, and these situations happened quicker than we expected.
"The three players who have been sold, if they stayed with us they would have been incredibly happy. I know them, they [would have] continued to do what they had done. These situations have happened, we make our replacements, and they are here.
"Normally when a project is six, seven years, you are not seven years with the same people. When I arrived there was just Kevin [De Bruyne]. We have gratitude for the guys that were here. All the players have made an incredible contribution, we can only be grateful."
City are interested in signing Brighton and Hove Albion left-back Marc Cucurella, who on Friday was said to have handed in a transfer request in an attempt to push through a move, with the Seagulls reportedly holding out for a £50million fee.
Guardiola refused to comment further, though he did note it was an area of the pitch City would like to strengthen if possible.
Aymeric Laporte, meanwhile, is likely to be out until at least September after having knee surgery, Guardiola confirmed.
Rashford hopes to carry cup momentum forward at Crystal Palace
Marcus Rashford is hopeful Manchester United can build on their dominant EFL Cup success over Barnsley when they go to Crystal Palace in the Premier League on Saturday, highlighting the importance of their attackers building positive relationships.
Rashford scored twice as United routed the third-tier side 7-0 at Old Trafford, reaching the fourth round of a competition they won in Ten Hag's first season at the helm in 2022-23.
On Saturday, they return to the scene of one of their most humiliating defeats under the Dutchman, facing a Crystal Palace side that thrashed them 4-0 in May.
Rashford – who also opened his Premier League account for the season in last week's 3-0 victory at Southampton – believes the confidence garnered from United's midweek win could take them far.
"It's important to have those relationships on the pitch but I think as a front unit, linking with the midfield, we did very well," Rashford told Sky Sports.
"Before the first goal, it was a little difficult but after the first one, we found better spaces and we probably made better decisions in order to score."
Asked if the goals would now start to flow for him, Rashford said: "It's early to say but I hope so. We'll move onto the next game now and just rest, recover and focus on the next one.
"Football is football, sometimes you have ups and sometimes you have downs. We have to use these games to find momentum and find consistency."
Palace, meanwhile, are 16th in the table with two points from four matches, though they did earn a 2-1 EFL Cup win at Queens Park Rangers on Tuesday.
Having netted on his return to his former club, attacking midfielder Eberechi Eze said: "Of course, to come back here and to score is a great feeling.
"That was the main thing as to what we wanted to come here and do: win, go through to the next round, and put in a performance.
"It's a difficult place to come. You can see the atmosphere, it's not easy to play under, but we did what we needed to do, and that's the most important thing."
PLAYERS TO WATCH
Crystal Palace – Jean-Philippe Mateta
Since Glasner's first game in charge in February, only Erling Haaland (19) has scored more Premier League goals than Mateta (15 in 17 games), including a goal in May's 4-0 rout of the Red Devils.
In that time, he has also scored multiple goals on four occasions (three braces, one hat-trick) – only Wilfried Zaha has ever scored more than once in more different Premier League games for the Eagles (six braces).
Manchester United – Bruno Fernandes
United captain Fernandes has had more shots without scoring than any other player in the Premier League so far this season (13).
Overall, United have the third-highest expected goals total in the Premier League this term (7.9 xG) but have scored five goals, with only Southampton (4.6 xG, one goal) registering a worse underperformance. They will hope Fernandes can lead from the front here.
MATCH PREDICTION – DRAW
Glasner's Palace beat United 4-0 in the Premier League last season – only eight managers have ever won their first two games against the Red Devils in the competition, most recently Roberto De Zerbi with Brighton in September 2023.
That victory was part of a Premier League double by the Eagles, the first time they have ever beaten United in consecutive league matches.
United have now lost two of their last three away league games against Palace (one draw), having gone unbeaten through their previous 13 such visits to Selhurst Park, winning nine and drawing four.
The Red Devils have struggled in London more generally under Ten Hag, only winning two of their last 16 away Premier League games in the capital (four draws, 10 defeats), with both victories coming at Fulham (2-1 in November 2022, 1-0 in November 2023).
With Palace winless in the Premier League so far this season (two draws, two defeats) after ending 2023-24 with six victories in their final seven games (one draw), it may not be a surprise to see the spoils shared.
OPTA WIN PROBABILITY
Crystal Palace – 35.9%
Manchester United – 39.1%
Draw – 25%
Goretzka 'will continue to be important' despite lack of playing time, Kompany insists
Vincent Kompany insists Leon Goretzka "will continue to be important" for Bayern Munich, despite his limited game time this season.
The Germany midfielder has fallen down the pecking order behind the likes of new signing Joao Palhinha, and played just 21 minutes this term.
Nine of those came on Tuesday, when he scored as a late substitute to complete his side's 9-2 rout of Dinamo Zagreb in their Champions League opener.
Though the 29-year-old has found opportunities hard to come by, Kompany maintains he is an integral part of Bayern's squad.
"He's important for us and will continue to be," Kompany told DAZN. "The team loves him. I only have players who want to play and accept the competition for places.
"At Bayern, it's always easy to talk about individual players. But I want to talk about the team. That’s important to me.
"He is very important in this team. He's doing well, but so are the others."
Goretzka has made over 200 appearances for Bayern since joining from Schalke in 2018, including 42 across all competitions last season.
The midfielder has also won five Bundesliga titles during his time with the Bavarian giants, as well as the Champions League in 2019-20.
Martial set for AEK Athens move after Man United exit
Former Manchester United forward Anthony Martial is set to complete a permanent transfer to Greek Super League side AEK Athens.
Martial, who left United earlier this year following the expiry of his contract, will arrive in Greece later on Wednesday and sign a deal reportedly worth £2.5million per season.
The Frenchman's contract will see him become the Greek side's top earner and surpass former Tottenham man Erik Lamela, who joined the club in July.
Martial arrived at Old Trafford in 2015 for £36m, with his move the highest transfer fee paid for a teenager.
He marked his debut with a goal in a 3-1 victory over Liverpool, and went on to score 17 goals in 49 appearances in all competitions during his debut year with the Red Devils.
Martial enjoyed his most prolific campaign in 2019-20, registering 34 goal contributions (23 goals and 11 assists), but subsequently struggled to regain his goalscoring touch.
Over the next four seasons, the Frenchman netted 19 times in all competitions, and played just 629 minutes under Erik ten Hag last term.
Martial ended his United career with 90 goals in 317 appearances along with four trophies, including the 2016-17 Europa League.
He will join a number of former Premier League players at AEK, including ex-Watford stars Roberto Pereyra and Nordin Amrabat, as well as former Brentford goalkeeper Thomas Strakosha.
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