Guardiola Reveals January Left-Back Hunt as Mendy to Be Out 'Longer Than Expected'

Benjamin Mendy could be forced to miss months of football with his latest injury setback for Manchester City, the French international full-back forced off the pitch early in City's 5-0 victory over Crystal Palace on Saturday, according to the Manchester Evening News.

Concerns over the 23-year-old, who joined Manchester City from AS Monaco in a deal worth £50m over the summer, have been high since the weekend and Pep Guardiola confirmed that the club's worst fears have been realised.

"[On Wednesday] he’s travelling to Barcelona and we will see finally what he has," City's manager confirmed. "Our first impression is that it will it be a little long, longer than we expected.

"It is very frustrating for him first as a person," he added. "Like with Gündoğan lastyear, I feel sorry for him. We would miss him a lot, it would be a major setback."

Guardiola also failed to rule out the possibility of signing a new left-back in January to add cover whilst Mendy is out. Although the former Barcelona boss is confident that he has players to cover Mendy's position, the departure of Aleksandar Kolarov (AS Roma) and Gaël Clichy (Başakşehir) has theft the Sky Blues without any depth at left-back.

"We will see. We thought about next summer about looking for another left-back," Guardiola said when asked if he'd look to sign a replacement. "We have Danilo, [Fabian] Delph and [Oleksandr] Zinchenko who can play there so we will see as we go along."