Presenter Sam Matterface has claimed that Manchester City knew Ilkay Gundogan had decided to leave the club some months before last season ended.
After spending seven years at the Manchester club, the midfielder left as a free agent to join Barcelona rather than sign a new deal at the Etihad Stadium.
With the treble winners now preparing for their upcoming season without the 32-year-old in the squad, one presenter has shared some interesting behind-the-scenes details regarding the period leading up to Gundogan’s exit.
Matterface says City knew Gundogan would leave
Speaking on talkSPORT, Matterface had this to say on the topic of Gundogan’s exit from City.
He said: “I know they wanted him to stay but I think they knew it was happening.
“When I was in Munich with them, probably March, April time, the suggestion was then that he was going to leave and that was before all the stuff happened and he was brilliant towards the end of the season.
“I know that Pep [Guardiola] wanted to keep him but actually he was pretty well-versed in what was happening at that time.”
During his time with the Citizens, which ended with him winning the treble as the club’s captain, the midfielder made 304 appearances for City across all competitions, scoring 60 goals and providing 40 assists along the way.
Towards the end of last season, there was a narrative being portrayed that the player would make a decision about his future once the campaign had ended.
In fact, Guardiola said on numerous occasions such as after the FA Cup final where Gundogan scored both goals in City’s 2-1 win over Manchester United that he wanted to see the German sign a new deal and continue he journey with the club.
Now that Matterface has come out and said that people behind the scenes at the club were aware that the 32-year-old wanted to leave, this makes the presented intrigue of whether he’d sign a new deal at City or not rather pointless, unless they thought there may have been a chance they could have changed his mind and persuaded him to stay before his contract expired.
