The battle to be Manchester City's long-term No1 is an open field, says goalkeeper coach Eric Steele.

"If we backtrack to eight days before the season we had three fit goalkeepers," Steele told MCFCTV, "but then Andreas (Isaksson) breaks a thumb and a day later Joe (Hart) breaks his finger. Kasper (Schmeichel) was number three but at that point he jumps into the side and showed that your number three can become number one very quickly.

"It's part of the learning process, Kasper is 21 now and Joe is still 20. Kasper took his chance when it came along and showed what he can do, Joe has done the same since.

"Andreas got into the side in the latter part of last season just before I arrived here, and we have a nice position where we have three very good goalkeepers. It's a question now of asking, which one is going to come out as the number one?"