City's Mendy facing lengthy absence with knee injury

Manchester City's French international full back Benjamin Mendy is facing a lengthy absence out of action with the club suspecting his knee injury is worse than at first believed. "After tomorrow he is travelling to Barcelona to see what he has," said City manager Pep Guardiola. "The first impression is that it will be a little bit long, unfortunately longer than we expect," he added, declining to give details of the injury.

Pep Guardiola confirms Benjamin Mendy will be out “for months—longer than we thought" pic.twitter.com/KyoyT3NgfD

— B/R Football (@brfootball) September 26, 2017

Premier League leaders City have used Spanish doctor Ramon Cugat to help with some injured players since Guardiola, the former Barcelona manager, joined the club last season. Mendy, who has made an impressive start to his career at City following his move from Monaco, for a reported 52m pounds ($69.97m) fee, missed Tuesday's 2-0 win over Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions League.

Pep Guardiola has revealed Benjamin Mendy's knee injury is worse than originally feared: https://t.co/cFyCZaRn6C pic.twitter.com/XRsvIvCJUZ

— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) September 27, 2017

"It is very frustrating for him first as a person, I feel sad for him, like I felt for Ilkay Gundogan," said Guardiola, referring to the German midfielder who missed most of last season with injury. "For the way we want to play we will lose a lot, he is a unique player. "We have alternatives in our squad, Danilo, Fabian Delph, Fernandinho, even (Ukrainian midfielder Oleksandr) Zinchenko," added the Spaniard.