Manchester City’s Ilkay Gundogan Addresses Team’s Current Challenges

Manchester City midfielder Ilkay Gundogan expressed his significant disappointment in an interview with TNT Sports, stating: “It’s very disappointing. We had chances to score a few goals but at the moment it feels like every attack we concede is just so dangerous.” Gundogan continued by observing what he perceives as a lack of precision, noting: “I don’t know, I have a feeling sometimes we are a bit careless with duels, instead of playing simple we overcomplicate things and we missed the right timing to release the ball. Just lose the ball and give them counter attacks.” He emphasized the team’s intended style of play, remarking: “We are built for possession, keep the ball, be strong, if you can’t do anything don’t lose it. At the moment it’s not working out for us.” Addressing the role of confidence, the midfielder stated: “It’s a big part of it and obviously that’s a mental issue as well. You can see that. We sometimes, one action we miss the ball, lose a duel and you see that we drop immediately, lose the rhythm, they are able to break our rhythm with the easiest of things. They don’t even need to do much.” Gundogan advised a return to fundamental practices to regain self-assurance: “You have to do the simple things as good as possible. Work hard again, this is how you get confidence back, even in the game if you miss something, by doing small and simple things you get confidence back. At the moment we are always doing the wrong things.” He conveyed a clear understanding of the team’s problems, explaining: “I feel like we know exactly what’s going wrong. If you look at the most part of games, even today, we actually didn’t play bad. [We] created chances, just missed to score, in these kind of games if you give away one chance it’s not easy to bounce back.” The German international reiterated the team’s awareness of their issues, adding: “We know what’s going wrong it’s just finding the switch to turn things around because even though we are not getting results, it doesn’t feel like we are far off.” Gundogan concluded by stressing the necessity of a collective effort and individual accountability to overcome their current difficulties: “As long as we don’t find that click, it’s going to be tough. The only thing right now we can do, every single player needs to question themselves, to do better, how the player can individually sacrifice more to contribute to the team so we can get collectively back on our way.”