There will be pressure on City and high expectations of the club after they managed to win the league, FA Cup and UEFA Champions League for the coveted treble.

Last week City lost 4-1 on penalties to Arsenal in the traditional season-opening Community Shield at Wembley.

The coach of the Citizens, Pep Guardiola, said as a team they must forget about the treble and focus on the job at hand this season.

“I don't think it's possible to do what we did last season,” said the Spanish tactician. “It's a once-in-a-lifetime – I said to the players, 'forget about it'.

“We have climbed the highest mountain with last season with what we have done. But the last two days we came down from the mountain with everyone else with the same intentions. There will be a lot of difficulties to climb to the highest possible part of the mountain.

‘Every season starts from zero’

“Our football, our behaviours and our mentality will dictate how our season will be. What we have done remains in our hearts and in our minds, how nice it was, but it's over. Every season starts from zero.

“The history speaks for itself - when you achieve what we have done, it is impossible to repeat.

“We have to be aware of that and hopefully our fans and ourselves can understand how difficult it was and just try and get a good result against Burnley, against Newcastle and after that Sheffield United, game by game. No more than that.”

Friday night’s game at Turf Moor kicks off at 21:00. In some of the weekend’s other games, the Gunners will face Nottingham Forest, Newcastle take on Aston Villa and Chelsea at home to Liverpool, while on Monday night Manchester United will take on Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Morgan Piek OFM Sport