Manchester City have been given permission by the Premier League to recruit a temporary replacement for the injured Joe Hart. Hart is only likely to be out of action for around a fortnight but with third-choice keeper Richard Martin also injured, the only back-up Hughes has for Kasper Schmeichel going into games against Arsenal, Schalke 04 in the UEFA Cup and Manchester United would be 18-year-old Norwegian Tobias Johansen.

City boss Mark Hughes said: "We have been given permission to bring in a goalkeeper on loan so we'll see what's out there.

"It would be just a short-term situation to cover us for a couple of games. We'll see who's available and see if it's worthwhile bringing anybody in."

Hughes added: "He's (Hart) likely to be out for a minimum of two weeks but when the injury first occurred we thought it was going to be substantially longer than that.

"Thankfully it's not as bad as we first thought because we did initially think it was ligament damage. That's not the case, so he will be back sooner than we feared, which is good news."