The Manchester City Project

Tickets for the game tomorrow will not be sold after 3pm today, however Barnsley are going to have cash turnstiles open.

New signings Carlos Tevez and Roque Santa Cruz will not play in the preseason friendly against Barnsley. The strikers are currently building on their fitness ready for the new season and will not be risked, whilst Micah Richards is expected to return to the team after recovering from swine flu. According to the official Manchester City website a late decision will be made on latest signing Kolo Toure.

Mark Hughes has said: “Micah is likely to participate against Barnsley but Carlos is probably a week away and Roque a bit longer than that but they are progressing well and there is no undue concern about any of them in terms of their fitness levels,”

“In fairness Micah has come back looking really strong and looks really focused. We are looking forward to him being involved at the weekend.

“We hope to raise the intensity a little at Barnsley but we still have different players at different fitness levels so we have to be mindful of that.

“What we have now are three good games in a week – Rangers and Celtic follow Barnsley- and what we intend to do is spread the workload so that everyone will get up to speed.

“We want everyone fit and well for the first game of the Premier League that is what we are working towards in these friendly games.”

Barnsley have injury worries ahead of the clash with Darren Moore, Anderson de Silva and Hugo Colace all picking up injuries during a training session today and will miss the match. Barnsley manager Simon Davey said:

"We have managed to get through pre-season without picking up any real injury problems and then we lose three today. Darren has rocked his ankle, Anderson will have a scan on his hamstring and Hugo has pulled a calf muscle.

"The middle of our team has been decimated in a five minute spell. It is frustrating but that is the things you deal with."