Ilkay Gundogan pledges to help Manchester City team-mate Benjamin Mendy through his injury rehabilitation
Gundogan is at the end of a long process that Mendy could be just beginning
Ilkay Gundogan knows how Benjamin Mendy feels.
The Manchester City midfielder is still making his slow return from nine months out with a knee ligament injury. On Tuesday night he made his third performance, a nine-minute appearance from the bench against Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions League.
Gundogan is at the end of a long process that Mendy could be just beginning. The French left-back is flying to Barcelona on Thursday to assess a suspected knee ligament injury of his own. City do not yet know how long he will be out for but it is expected to be a few months, not quite as bad as Gundogan’s long lay-off.
But Gundogan said after Tuesday night’s game that him and his team-mates will be here for Mendy during his rehabilitation. “He is the most disappointed guy,” Gundogan said.
“I think our task now is just to support him and just to be there if he needs something from us. I know how difficult these kind of situations are. There’s not really much to talk about at the moment. We just should try to behave as normal as possible. We wish him a very speedy recovery and we support him every way.”
Gundogan started his return 11 days ago with 24 minutes off the bench at Watford. Four days later he started at West Bromwich Albion in the Carabao Cup and played 59 minutes before limping off with a knock sustained by a hard Claudio Yacob tackle.
That kept him out of Saturday’s 5-0 win over Crystal Palace at the Etihad Stadium but on Tuesday night he was ready again, and came on for David Silva with nine minutes left.
“I’m just happy that I returned that quick after that hard tackle,” Gundogan said.
“I tried to train on the Friday and I still felt a little bit in my knee. Saturday it was not possible to be in the squad but I trained Sunday and Monday and today in the morning I felt good so I’m just happy to return that quick.”
The Germany international has been training hard with the first team for almost two months now but the next challenge for him is to get back into the rhythm of playing matches. There is no way to do that other than by playing, which is what Gundogan is now desperate to keep doing.
“At this point it is just about getting used to the competition,” Gundogan said.
“I have had two or three months of training, and hard training as well. First individual and now one and a half to two months with the team. Training is fine and I do really feel good in training. Obviously I haven’t played that much. I’m just getting used to the competition and playing games and getting minutes.”
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