Leroy Sane: Manchester City forward could be out for seven months, says Pep Guardiola
Friday 9 August 2019 15:16, UK
Pep Guardiola has confirmed forward Leroy Sane could be out for "six or seven months" with an ACL injury.
The club confirmed on Thursday that Sane was due to have surgery for the injury suffered in City's Community Shield win over Liverpool at Wembley Stadium last Sunday.
On Friday, Guardiola expanded on the extent of the damage, saying: "I'm not a doctor or physio but normally this kind of injury, ACL, is six/seven months.
"Hopefully in February/March, he can come back with us."
Despite Bayern Munich making Sane their primary target in the transfer window and being confident of signing the German, Sky Sports News reported City had no intention of selling Sane, and Guardiola confirmed the 23-year-old was firmly in his plans for the upcoming season.
"I didn't potentially think about him leaving," Guardiola said. "I always said the same: he's our player, he didn't tell me: 'I want to leave' so I always thought he was our player. For that reason, he played all the pre-season in the starting XI, in the final, he played.
"So, unfortunately, it is incredibly bad news because in three seasons we had three ACLs [Ilkay Gundogan and Benjamin Mendy have previously suffered the same injury].
"He's a young player and hopefully he will recover well. He is in the best hands possible in terms of the situation (surgery) next week.
"All the people here are going to try and help him be comfortable in the tough moments because after one month, two months he will feel alone. We will try to be with him as much as possible and help him recover as well as possible."
Last season without left-back Mendy, City used makeshift players to cover for him, and Guardiola said City are similarly not prepared to plug in a like-for-like replacement for Sane.
"Without him? We don't have an alternative," he said.
"In the first season, we didn't have Gundogan. The second season with Benjamin, we played with Fabian Delph and Oleksandr Zinchenko when both are not left-backs.
"They did it incredibly well and now with Leroy, we will just let him know we are here and we will wait for him."
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