The England man completed his £49 million move from Liverpool last week and is now ready to make his first appearance for the Blues having joined up with the squad in Australia
By Iain Strachan at AAMI Park
Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini has confirmed Raheem Sterling is likely to feature against Roma on Tuesday.
Sterling has joined City for their pre-season tour of Australia after completing an acrimonious transfer from Liverpool for £49 million last week.
The England forward may not start the International Champions Cup match against Serie A opposition at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Tuesday, but Pellegrini does expect to hand the 20-year-old his first appearance in a sky blue shirt.
"Raheem has worked with us for three days… he will play also some minutes," Pellegrini told a press conference when asked about the clash with Rudi Garcia's men.
"It's important for him to try to have minutes with our team."
He added: "I know him because I played against him the last two seasons.
"I think he's a very young player with a lot of ambition. And that for me is very important."
Sterling is one of three English players brought in by City during the last week, with Fabian Delph arriving from Aston Villa and 18-year-old hot prospect Patrick Roberts swapping Fulham for the Etihad Stadium.
And City No.1 Joe Hart believes the influx of young English talent is a great boost to the club.
Quizzed on whether or not the new recruits would help to add to City's British identity, England international Hart said: "The club's got that.
"I've been here a long time and I've enjoyed every moment of being at this club. We're a proud Premier League team.
"I'm pretty sure that we've made those signings because they're very good footballers. It just happens to be that they're English players, which is great.
"We look to sign the best players that we can. Two especially (Sterling and Delph) have proven themselves in the Premier League, [they are] exciting talents.
"Obviously Patrick's got a great reputation. We're going to look to build him and hopefully make him one of our stars of the future."
City had to move their final pre-match training session to neighbouring AAMI Park due to the poor condition of the MCG surface following heavy rain and an AFL match on Sunday after Roma beat Real Madrid 7-6 on penalties on Saturday.
Pellegrini says he is "concerned" about the state of the playing surface, and also admitted marathon pre-season tours are less than ideal.
"Yes, I am concerned," he said. "We know it's not in the best shape. They play already the game against Roma with Real Madrid. That was the reason we changed the place where we are going to [hold] the open training. I hope that the pitch will be at least in normal conditions.
"It's important to play at least six friendly games, we are going to do it.
"Of course if you can make less travel it's better. But I think it's very difficult for all the big teams at this moment not to come to play here in Australia, in the United States or in China."
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