Ilkay Gundogan finds positive from Manchester City defeat to Southampton

On a hugely underwhelming night from Manchester City, club captain Ilkay Gundogan highlighted one positive of the defeat in the Carabao Cup quarter-final.

A first-half double from Nathan Jones’ side gave Pep Guardiola plenty to think about at the half-time interval, as Manchester City looked to claw back from a 2-0 deficit to give them any chance of reaching the League Cup’s final four.

In the end, the first-half performance gave the Premier League champions too much to do, despite Guardiola’s best efforts to rescue the game through a triple half-time substitution, and the introduction of the likes of Erling Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne.

Speaking after the encounter on the south coast, Ilkay Gundogan was asked whether the defeat was a necessary reminder to him and his City teammates that no game can be taken for granted.

This was a suggestion that the German midfielder denied, as he said, “We didn’t really need that reminder. We kind of knew it already. At the end of the day, this game also shows you that there’s no room for taking a time-out.

“Every single game is like a final, and also especially in the Premier League now for us, with also being five points behind Arsenal. We need to win most of the games, we know that. As I said before, there’s no room for any mistakes, for any poor performances like today.”

Despite the performance as a whole being disappointing across the field for Pep Guardiola’s players, the club captain managed to find one positive to take from the early Carabao Cup exit at the hands of the Premier League’s bottom side.

“Hopefully, if there’s something good that we can take out of this game today, hopefully it was something like a wake up call, at the right time – even though it’s so disappointing and sad to get out of this cup.

“Hopefully at the end, maybe in a few weeks, we can at least, looking back, take something good out of the game.”

The defeat will come as a significant disappointment to Manchester City and their players, especially having knocked out two of the tournament favourites prior to Wednesday night in Chelsea and Liverpool.

City do still have three competitions remaining to compete for during the second-half of the campaign, with a Premier League title race in full flow, a Champions League last-16 double-header to look forward to, and a heavyweight clash against top-flight trophy rivals Arsenal in the FA Cup fourth round.