MANCHESTER City assistant coach Rodolfo Borrell confirmed the Premier League champions will use a mix of first-team players and Under-23s in their squad to face Swindon Town in the FA Cup on Friday.

The Citizens announced at lunchtime on Thursday that the club is suffering from a Covid outbreak as manager Pep Guardiola and seven first-team players are among a mixture of 21 players and backroom staff who have been forced to self-isolate and will now miss the third-round tie at the County Ground.

With fears it may result in the game being either called off or City sending down an all-academy squad, one of Guardiola’s most senior coaches stated this would not be the case.

Borrell, who stood in for Guardiola at Thursday’s pre-match press conference, said it would probably be the easiest team selection they have ever faced as City would be forced to simply pick whoever is healthy.

Borrell said: “We have had an outbreak and, at the moment, we have seven players unavailable plus 14 staff.

“There is quite a big outbreak now. We are getting it day by day, we don’t know when it is going to end.”

Asked how Guardiola was, Borrell said the City boss was fine and did not have “a lot of symptoms” before declining to reveal exactly which players would be unavailable for their trip to Wiltshire.

He said: “This is not for me to say. We have seven players (out) and I have to prepare for the game.

“I would not like to mention them because I might forget one. I don’t think it is for me to say right now.”

“Possibly, (it will) be one of the easiest line-ups we have to decide. We just play with the ones available. We don’t have much more.

“Our aim is to keep playing as much as we can. It’s time to respect competitions, and at this moment we can fill the team.

“I don’t know in the following days what is going to happen, but right now, it’s an easy decision as to who will play.

“We will play with whoever we’ve got. We’ve got some first-team players, and some players who are going to come from our second team.”

Borrell was asked if the high number of cases could lead to the match possibly being postponed.

He said: “We have prepared mentally for the game. We have to prepare for the game to happen.

“If tomorrow it is not possible because of more news, this is out of our reach for now.”