Mendy’s the new Super Mario
IT is not often in football that a player earns reverential status after playing just 389 minutes at a new club, but Benjamin Mendy had City supporters enamoured by the time of his unfortunate knee injury last September. And it’s just as well, too. It takes a great deal of support to come back from cruciate ligament damage, and a quieter character could have easily fallen by the wayside after suffering such a serious injury so early into a career.
But Mendy was at the forefront of all of City’s achievements last season, without necessarily kicking a ball.
From taking off down the touchline in hobbled-pursuit of Raheem Sterling after his winner against Southampton, to being the face of the club’s ‘shark team’ social media campaign, Mendy was allowed to be the life and soul of the Blues’ recordbreaking party last season.
Now, though, the 24-year-old is back fit and features in Pep Guardiola’s plans as first-choice left-back for the defence of their Premier League title.
The Blues have never secured back-to-back league crowns and Guardiola is well aware of the challenge ahead.
It will take a resumption - if not an improvement – of the high standards of least season to do it and Mendy would do well to take heed of his manager’s warning to get his head down and graft.
That Guardiola allowed a young and vulnerable left-back the limelight as his side-swept away all before them signals another dimension of his management ability.
It was something of a masterstroke to allow Mendy to travel to the US as the face of the club’s media team’s coverage of the Superbowl for the publicity to keep him in City fans’ thoughts.
But Guardiola knows that now he is back playing, there is no time for such gimics.
“Mendy is Mendy. Sometimes we want to kill him and sometimes you think, wow, what a player we have,” he said after City’s win against Arsenal on Sunday. “Hopefully, we can convince him to forget a little bit the social media and improve a few things.” It comes as no coincidence that club captain Vincent Kompany offered similar thoughts. “We had Balotelli, now we have Mendy. But Mendy has a heart of gold – he is such a nice person, and a character,” the Belgian said. “He doesn’t see the same boundaries as we sometimes do. The lines are blurred sometimes between what should be done and what shouldn’t. “I love him for what he offers on the pitch. “It’s a big season for him and I hope we’ll see the best of him as well.” Being placed in the same bracket as Mario Balotelli is something of a backhanded compliment and it is time for the France international to veer the right side of those boundaries and prove that his worth on the pitch is greater than his online value this season.
Mendy is Mendy. Sometimes we want to kill him and sometimes we think ‘what a player’
Pep Guardiola