Manchester City have requested a work permit for the Brazilian midfielder Douglas Luiz after he forced his way into Pep Guardiola’s plans.

City signed the 20-year-old for £10m from Vasco da Gama last summer before sending him on a season-long loan to Girona. The midfielder played only 17 games in Spain, mostly as a substitute, but has impressed during pre-season to the extent Guardiola believes he can deputise for Fernandinho.

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The Premier League champions remain in the market for midfield reinforcement having missed out on the proposed signing of Jorginho, who will instead line up for Chelsea against City in Sunday’s Community Shield. But Guardiola believes Luiz can fill that role providing he receives clearance to play in England.

“We want him to stay but he does not have a work permit yet so we will try to convince the federation to allow him to stay,” the City manager said. “I think he has real potential to play with us and improve with us. We saw in pre-season against Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund that he is at a good level. It depends on him and us. The club wants him to stay and he wants to stay but it depends on the work permit.”

Guardiola added: “He’s ready to play, that’s why we want the permit. We ask for the work permit because we believe he can play with us, otherwise we would not be asking.”

The City manager admitted he could strengthen his squad before Thursday’s deadline after Chelsea scuppered his plans to sign Jorginho from Napoli this summer. “Jorginho is a special player for the way we want to play,” he said: “We will try to find the same but we have Douglas, as long as the work permit is a possibility. There are other players but the transfer window is nearly done and we’ll decide in five or six days. If not we stay with the players we have.”