Ilkay Gundogan thinks his anger at being benched for the Premier League finale fuelled his title-winning performance against Aston Villa. Gundogan scored City’s first in the 76th minute and their third — after Rodri’s equaliser — in the 81st minute. And a remarkable comeback may never have happened if Guardiola’s first signing at the Etihad had not channelled his anger in the right way to help his team.
Ilkay Gundogan said: “To be honest the day didn’t start that well because I was highly expecting to start and I didn’t.’ “We are all competitive, we all want to play and I remember the week before I hadn’t started the West Ham game so I was quite confident in starting and then the moment I found out I wasn’t starting I was a bit frustrated and angry. But I still tried to be focused and support the guys that were starting and maybe even try to put the anger into a game a little bit. Things didn’t start so well also for me after I subbed on because i was on for 10 seconds and we conceded the second goal so it was 0-2. Then, the hope was not huge any more but as a professional football player you always try to do your best. you do the simple thing – try to score the first as quickly as possible. Luckily it happened and then the 10 minutes where we scored the three goals everything was so quick it was very difficult for me to think about it or analyse it because I feel like it’s impossible.”
