Pundit Karl Robinson has said that he was blown away by Ilkay Gundogan’s performances for Manchester City towards the end of last season.
The pundit, who was part of Sam Allardyce’s coaching staff during his brief stint in charge of Leeds United, got a good view of the midfielder during City’s 2-1 win over the Yorkshire club at the Etihad Stadium where he scored both of the home side’s goals.
With the German now having left the European champions to join Barcelona as a free agent, Pep Guardiola will have to make do without another midfielder for the next few months as Kevin De Bruyne picked up a hamstring injury in last week’s 3-0 win over Burnley.
This has now led to Robinson sharing his thoughts on the current situation City find themselves in.
Robinson says he was amazed by Gundogan
Speaking in a recent episode of the No Tippy Tappy Football podcast, Robinson had this to say about De Bruyne’s injury and Gundogan’s exit.
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He said: “I don’t think that’s much of a problem and what baffled me was how good Gundogan was. To me, that was a bigger loss, now that might be controversial but watching him play in the four games before we played them, I was like ‘wow.’
“And we did all this work and he played a pass with the outside of his left foot and De Bruyne’s backheeled it to Haaland who’s had a shot and missed it. But Gundogan, to me, was the most complete performance I’d seen.
“I felt there was two players at Leeds that we’d playing against that shocked me how good they were really was him and Declan Rice at West Ham.
“To lose Gundogan and then lose De Bruyne, I think it becomes a bigger problem than what they had because of the impact of both of them, and when you’re competing at the level they competed at last season, they were so influential in most of what Man City did.”
Having captained the Citizens to their treble last season, Gundogan was a prominent figure in Guardiola’s side by making 51 appearances across all competitions.
In addition to the two goals he scored against Leeds back in May, the 32-year-old followed that up by scoring another brace in City’s 3-0 win over Everton which helped them end the campaign on a high and ultimately lift their fifth title in six years.
This shows why Robinson thinks losing Gundogan and now not having De Bruyne in the team could be a big problem for City going forward.