Knee injury sidelines Manchester City´s Mendy for three months

Manchester City full-back Benjamin Mendy will miss up to 12 weeks after undergoing knee surgery, Pep Guardiola has confirmed.

Mendy, 24, withdrew from the France squad over the international break with what was described by the French Football Federation (FFF) as “a sprained left knee and meniscus injury”.

City confirmed the injury-prone defender was operated on following medical checks at Dr. Ramon Cugat’s clinic in Barcelona and Guardiola has now revealed the expected lay-off to be a period of “10, 12 weeks”.

The setback comes as a bitter blow for Mendy, who had battled back to fitness this season after rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament in September 2017.

.@benmendy23 rocking that @aguerosergiokun look! #mancity pic.twitter.com/GN5pNiCr6K

— Manchester City (@ManCity) November 22, 2018

City will also be without Bernardo Silva for Saturday’s trip to West Ham after he picked up an unspecified problem on Portugal duty, meaning Ilkay Gundogan and Phil Foden are in contention for a starting berth at London Stadium.

In-form attacking midfielder Silva could miss the Champions League clash with Lyon on Tuesday, although Guardiola was confident his injury is not serious.

“He cannot play this weekend. It’s not too big but [he will miss] this game and I don’t know if he will be ready for next Tuesday,” the City boss said.

The champions are two points clear at the Premier League summit ahead of their meeting with West Ham and former manager Manuel Pellegrini.

Nicolas Otamendi, a £28.5million signing during Pellegrini’s City tenure, is back in training and could feature.