Pep Guardiola ‘told’ by Manchester City to ‘take a look’ at 20-year-old Sweden international forward

Manchester City ‘told’ Pep Guardiola to specifically ‘take a look’ at the club’s trialist on their pre-season tour of the United States, Amar Fatah.

The youngster was a surprise inclusion in the Premier League champions’ first-team travelling squad to make the trip over to the United States this summer, in light of the large majority of the club’s more familiar players remaining on holiday.

The expectation is that Manchester City will not be welcoming any more players into their first-team squad Stateside this summer, after Josko Gvardiol and Mateo Kovacic joined the group ahead of their second warm-up match in New York.

As such, the likes of Kevin De Bruyne, Jeremy Doku, Bernardo Silva, Ruben Dias, and many more will more than likely report back to the City Football Academy on August 5, ahead of the club’s FA Community Shield meeting with Manchester United at Wembley Stadium.

But while the absent first-team stars has caused some challenging performances for the Premier League champions this summer, it has simultaneously provided Pep Guardiola with a rare opportunity to view the next best talents emerging at Manchester City.

As discussed by the Etihad Stadium manager during his post-match press conference following a narrow 2-3 defeat to AC Milan, Pep Guardiola revealed the club ‘told’ him to ‘take a look at’ Amar Fatah this summer, and he is ‘impressed’ by his driving runs into the box.

Speaking after the contest in New York’s iconic Yankee Stadium, Pep Guardiola explained, “Look at Amar (Fatah), this guy who is 20 years old, comes from Troyes and the club told me you have to take a look, because he has potential.

“Every time he has the ball he dribbles to the byline, that’s what a winger is all about.”

Amar Fatah is a Swedish youth international who most-recently played as a winger on loan at Belgian club Lommel, on loan from the French Ligue 2 club Troyes – both of whom are part of the City Football Group.

The youngster initially signed a five-year contract with Troyes in the summer of 2022, for a sum understood to be in the region of €5 million, before joining Lommel on loan for the remainder of the 2022/23 season in the January of that campaign.

That loan agreement was subsequently extended through to the duration of the recent 2023/24 season, and the latest opportunity granted through City Football Group connections is arguably the greatest of them all in working under Pep Guardiola.