Manchester City have found themselves in a sticky situation on the pitch recently.

Having gone unbeaten across all competitions until late October, City have lost their three previous matches.

As things stand, the Citizens are two points behind Liverpool at the top of the Premier League table and in the knockout section of the Champions League table.

Despite this unusual recent run of form, a pundit and former Premier League player has named one particular City figure in Pep Guardiola’s side he thinks has looked out of sorts for the entire campaign.

Jamie Carragher not impressed with Ilkay Gundogan this season

In his latest column for The Telegraph, Jamie Carragher discussed the topic of how Guardiola has had to deal with Rodri’s season-ending injury, pinpointing one particular midfielder for his unusual form.

He said: “Guardiola has looked to Mateo Kovacic and Ilkay Gundogan to fill the Rodri-shaped gap and they are both top players.

“They are also in their thirties so maintaining the necessary intensity levels game after game is tougher for them.

“Gundogan has not looked like the same player who left City for Barcelona.”

How has Gundogan fared so far this season?

Back in October, before City lost three games in a row, Gundogan discussed Rodri’s injury, saying this on the matter.

He said: We’ll miss now a big player for us with Rodri being out injured for a bit, which is a big blast for us obviously. Not just in terms of his quality on the pitch but in terms of personality and character.

“But if we have shown something or proven something in the last years, it is that we always can deal with these kinds of circumstances quite well and that’s now the target for the future.”

Appearing in 14 matches for the Blues across all competitions since his return to the Etihad Stadium from Barcelona in August, Gundogan has started nine of them, scoring one goal and delivering one assist along the way.

Ilkay Gundogan 2024/25	Appearances	Goals	Assists	Minutes Played
Premier League	9	0	1	555
Champions League	4	1	0	217
Carabao Cup	1	0	0	45

Starting six of the nine Premier League matches he’s featured in, the 34-year-old has only been able to earn himself an overall performance rating of 6.62/10 from WhoScored.

To put that into perspective, this puts Gundogan as the second-lowest-rated player in the City squad out of the names who have started more than two matches.

This makes it easy to see why Carragher has been less than impressed with the midfielder who captained the Blues to their historic Treble back in the 2022/23 season.

With Rodri not set to feature again this season, Gundogan is just one of the players in City’s ranks who will need to step up if they want to see the club win a trophy.

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