Man City XI vs Wolves: Latest team news, predicted lineup and injury updates for Premier League clash

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Evening Standard

·15 Agustus 2025

Man City XI vs Wolves: Latest team news, predicted lineup and injury updates for Premier League clash

Pep Guardiola’s side open new campaign at Molineux

Manchester City take on Wolves in their first game of the Premier League season.

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There is already a storyline to be written if City left-back Rayan Ait-Nouri makes his league debut for his new employers against his former club.

Pep Guardiola’s side travel to the Black Country, where they snuck a 2-1 victory the last time they visited Molineux back in October last year.

Jorgen Strand Larsen opened the scoring on seven minutes before Josko Gvardiol equalised just after the half-hour. John Stones nicked a winner in the fifth minute of stoppage time.

This time around, it is clean slates for both sides, with the pair looking to improve on below-par campaigns last term.

For City, there are five injury concerns.

The first and most important is Rodri, the Ballon d’Or winner, who sustained a “bad injury” in the Club World Cup defeat by Al-Hilal.

Guardiola has said that the holding midfielder could feature tentatively in City’s opening few Premier League games, with a view to being “really fit” for after the September international break.

Phil Foden is also looking to hit the ground running after a quieter season last year. However, he has hampered by an ankle niggle, with Guardiola revealing that it would be touch and go whether he would play at Molineux.

Midfielder Mateo Kovacic is a definite absentee with a calf problem, and he is likely to be sidelined until September at the earliest.

Defender Gvardiol is also recovering from a knock and is likely to be assessed before the trip to Wolves, while Claudio Echeverri missed much of the Club World Cup campaign with a niggle.

City have plenty of new signings that they could hand Premier League debuts to.

Ait-Nouri is one, and he became a regular fixture in the side during the Club World Cup run to the last 16.

Rayan Cherki and Tijjani Reijnders were both also signed ahead of the summer tournament, and they have been fully integrated into the squad throughout the off-season.

James Trafford, re-signed from Burnley, is also in contention after starting the friendly against sister club Palermo last week.

Man City predicted XI (4-2-3-1): Ederson; Nunes, Akanji, Dias, Ait-Nouri; Silva, Reijnders; Doku, Cherki, Marmoush; Haaland

Doubts: Foden, Rodri, Gvardiol, Echeverri

Injured: Kovacic

Time and date: 5.30pm BST, Saturday, August 16, 2025

How to watch: Sky Sports Main Event