Manchester City players wear Benjamin Mendy shirts in tribute to their injured team-mate

MANCHESTER CITY players wore special T-shirts to commemorate their recently-injured team-mate Benjamin Mendy ahead of their home clash against Stoke.

The shirts mirror the act carried out by City players last season in tribute to Ilkay Gundogan, who was sideline with a long-term injury.

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Last season, as they came out of the tunnel for their match against Watford, the entire side were dressed in back-to-front ‘Gundogan 8’ shirts.

The idea was clearly to show support to their team mate Ilkay Gundogan, who missed the rest of the season with a serious knee injury – though many fans mocked the gesture for going to far.

Similar to the display last term, City’s stars emerged from the tunnel in tops reading: “Mendy 22”.

The £49.3million left-back suffered the blow facing Crystal Palace last month in just his fifth game for the club.

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Mendy even chimed in on Twitter, he said: "Who needs a GF when you have these teammates".

The £49.3million left-back suffered the blow facing Crystal Palace last month in just his fifth game for the club.

The France international has recently posted a video on social media showing the treatment that he is getting in Barcelona.

Before City knew the full extent of the injury, Pep Guardiola said: "It is very frustrating for him first as a person.

"Like with Ilkay Gundogan last year, I feel sorry for him.

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"We would miss him a lot, it would be a major setback."

Asked if City may buy a replacement, Guardiola added: “We will see. We thought about next summer about looking for another left-back.

“We have Danilo, Fabian Delph and Oleksandr Zinchenko who can play there so we will see as we go along.”