Guardiola seeks replacement for injured leftback Mendy in January

LONDON: Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has indicated his main priority in the January transfer window will be to buy a replacement for injured defender Benjamin Mendy.

France leftback Mendy will be out for the next six months after suffering cruciate knee ligament damage during City’s victory over Crystal Palace on Sept 23.

Guardiola can use Fabian Delph, Danilo or Ukrainian youngster Oleksandr Zinchenko in Mendy’s absence, but he believes the former Monaco defender, signed for £52mil (RM292mil) in the close season, will be missed hugely.

The City manager spoke about Mendy’s influence after refusing to comment on the possibility of signing Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez in January.

City failed with an attempt to sign Sanchez in August, but Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger indicated on Thursday that the Chile forward, along with teammate Mesut Ozil, could be sold when the transfer window reopens because both will be out of contract at the end of the season.

“The transfer window is closed now. Unfortunately it was long open, but now it is closed,” Guardiola told reporters on Friday.

“We will see about January, we are in October. The only problem we have – a big, big problem we have – is Mendy, six months out. It’s a big problem.

“We’ll suffer even though we have the exceptional Fabian, Danilo, and even Zinchenko. Mendy was and is so important for us and unfortunately six months (is) a long time.”

Guardiola has indicated that forward Sergio Aguero is ahead of schedule in his recovery from a broken rib sustained in a recent taxi crash.

Aguero returned to light training on Tuesday, even though he looked set to be out for more than a month after being injured in the accident in Amsterdam on Sept 28.

The crash happened when the striker was on his way to the city’s airport to fly back to Manchester after attending Colombian singer Maluma’s concert on his day off.

Medical officials within the Argentina setup suggested that Aguero would not play again before November.

However, Aguero has suffered no ill effects after three days of training, including a full session with his teammates on Thursday.

Guardiola was checking on his seven-goal top scorer during training on Friday.

“He did his first training session after what happened, and he did it quite well,” Guardiola said. — AFP