“There’s nothing more to say” – Ilkay Gundogan left frustrated by Man City performance in Southampton Cup exit

Ilkay Gundogan was left frustrated by a result that Manchester City ‘deserved’ on Wednesday night, following a Carabao Cup quarter-final exit to Southampton.

A hugely underwhelming first-half performance from the four-time League Cup winners under Pep Guardiola left City with a monumental mountain to climb in the second 45 minutes.

A quick-fire double from Southampton, opened by Sekou Mara on 23 minutes and added to by Moussa Djenepo on 28 minutes, forced Pep Guardiola into a triple substitution on half-time, before adding Erling Haaland to his fire-power later on in the second-half.

However, it was too little too late, as City continued to struggle in testing the Southampton defence and former goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu.

Speaking after the defeat at St Mary’s, City captain Gundogan admitted that this was a performance in all aspects that the reigning Premier League champions were not used to seeing, before congratulating their opponents on a ‘decent’ performance.

“Yes, it’s very disappointing,” said Gundogan. “At the end it feels like we didn’t deserve a better result, unfortunately, because the performance was not good enough at all.”

“Defensively and offensively, we didn’t see a City side that we are used to seeing. There’s nothing more to say than just congratulations to Southampton for a decent performance, and for getting into the semi-final.”

While Ilkay Gundogan said it’s not easy to provide an immediate analysis following defeat, the Germany international outlined multiple areas of Manchester City’s performance that contributed towards defeat against Nathan Jones’ side.

“Straight after the game, it’s never easy to explain things. But I think that defensively we were not aggressive enough, we were not consistent enough, we were not winning enough duels, and especially with a team like Southampton, as you know, always aggressive, you have to stand against that,” Gundogan explained.

“And with the ball, we just lost a lot of easy possession. It feels like we missed a lot of easy passes, didn’t get into our rhythm, we were not efficient enough in our attacks, and didn’t create enough at all, to be honest.

“That as a mix, with a Southampton side that didn’t make it easy for us, gives you at the end this difficult result to take.”

Manchester City now have only a matter of days to regroup and lift spirits within the camp, before they take on an in-form Manchester United side at Old Trafford in another must-win Premier League clash to maintain their chase with Arsenal at the top of the table.

Erik ten Hag’s men exceeded City’s 2022/23 Carabao Cup performance by reaching the semi-finals of the competition through a quarter-final win over Charlton Athletic ahead of the weekend, setting up a last-four meeting with Nottingham Forest over two-legs.