Micah Richards is hopeful of a settled Manchester City defence next season.

The England international told City's website: "The defence has been a big strength of ours over the last few years and hopefully we can keep that going.

"With a new manager in place hopefully we can get some new players in, in all positions, to strength the squad and give it a right good go this coming season.

"Hopefully we can get to the end of the campaign and say 'we had a good season' - we don't want to be making excuses and saying 'we should have done this' or 'we should have done that.'"