diff --git a/src/Symfony/Component/HttpClient/HttpClientTrait.php b/src/Symfony/Component/HttpClient/HttpClientTrait.php
index d5ec607bc9..8bf573b543 100644
--- a/src/Symfony/Component/HttpClient/HttpClientTrait.php
+++ b/src/Symfony/Component/HttpClient/HttpClientTrait.php
@@ -111,7 +111,7 @@ trait HttpClientTrait
         }
 
         if (isset($options['auth_bearer']) && (!\is_string($options['auth_bearer']) || !preg_match('{^[-._=~+/0-9a-zA-Z]++$}', $options['auth_bearer']))) {
-            throw new InvalidArgumentException(sprintf('Option "auth_bearer" must be a string containing only characters from the base 64 alphabet, %s given.', \is_string($options['auth_bearer']) ? 'invalid string' : '"'.\gettype($options['auth_bearer']).'"'));
+            throw new InvalidArgumentException(sprintf('Option "auth_bearer" must be a string containing only characters from the base 64 alphabet, '.(\is_string($options['auth_bearer']) ? 'invalid string given.' : '"%s" given.'), \gettype($options['auth_bearer'])));
         }
 
         if (isset($options['auth_basic'], $options['auth_bearer'])) {
@@ -197,6 +197,16 @@ trait HttpClientTrait
                 continue;
             }
 
+            if ('auth_ntlm' === $name) {
+                if (!\extension_loaded('curl')) {
+                    $msg = 'try installing the "curl" extension to use "%s" instead.';
+                } else {
+                    $msg = 'try using "%s" instead.';
+                }
+
+                throw new InvalidArgumentException(sprintf('Option "auth_ntlm" is not supported by "%s", '.$msg, __CLASS__, CurlHttpClient::class));
+            }
+
             $alternatives = [];
 
             foreach ($defaultOptions as $key => $v) {
@@ -205,10 +215,6 @@ trait HttpClientTrait
                 }
             }
 
-            if ('auth_ntlm' === $name) {
-                throw new InvalidArgumentException(sprintf('Option "auth_ntlm" is not supported by "%s", try using CurlHttpClient instead.', __CLASS__));
-            }
-
             throw new InvalidArgumentException(sprintf('Unsupported option "%s" passed to "%s", did you mean "%s"?', $name, __CLASS__, implode('", "', $alternatives ?: array_keys($defaultOptions))));
         }