Man City may be forced into transfer market amid doubts over Benjamin Mendy

Pep Guardiola admits he is unsure over Benjamin Mendy's long-term fitness.
AFP/Getty Images/Lindsey Parnaby

Benjamin Mendy’s Manchester City future has been thrown into fresh doubt over concerns about his long-term fitness.

Pep Guardiola plans to move for a top class left-back in the summer after the £49m left back’s injury-ravaged two seasons at the Etihad Stadium.

And worries over his fitness have now reached the point where he was named on the bench against West Ham in midweek effectively to make up numbers.

The France international is currently recovering from a meniscus operation - but sparked hope he was ready to push for a return to the first team when named as a substitute for Wednesday’s 1-0 win.

But Guardiola confirmed there was little chance of Mendy seeing any action due to his ongoing injury woes, which have ruled him out of Saturday’s trip to Bournemouth.

The Frenchman has suffered from a series of injuries since arriving from Monaco in 2017.
Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images

City are ready to embark on a fresh spending spree in the summer - and a new left back is one of their priorities, with Leicester’s Ben Chilwell a target.

Guardiola said: “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but we are thinking about the chance to find somebody in that position. “There are three or four positions I think we have to try to look for and some ideas we have.

“I don’t know in the end what is going to happen, but it is an option to buy a left-back.”

Guardiola’s patience has been severely tested by Mendy’s fitness record.

The former Monaco player suffered knee ligament damage in his first season at City - and has missed the majority of this campaign with metatarsal and meniscus injuries.

“Today, he’s not fit,” said Guardiola. “It’s not about English football, it’s the fact that he’s not able to play, he was injured during two seasons.

“If it happens in two seasons it can happen three. Hopefully not, we’ll work with that, he’s working with that, but the truth is we could use him in few games.

Guardiola has been forced to use Oleksandr Zinchenko and Aymeric Laporte at left-back.
AFP/Getty Images

“That is the reality. At the end the strongest guys, every day are there. That is the truth. That’s why we are looking for, maybe, you know, for the next season.”

Without the injured John Stones, Aymeric Laporte and Fabian Delph, Guardiola named Mendy on the bench against West Ham.

But asked if the defender could have played if necessary, the City manager responded: “No I don’t think so.

“I didn’t have many players, we have lot of injuries.

In Pictures | Man City vs West Ham | 27/02/2019

1/16

“In the last moment Fabian woke up with a problem in his leg and Philippe Sandler and Mendy were there and we bring them to the bench, but still he’s not perfect.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in