‘Let’s end Anfield jinx’
ILKAY’S MESSAGE TO CITY /MATCH PREVIEW
ILKAY Gundogan set a few alarm bells ringing when he said that he might never be the same player again.
The City star had just made his comeback after ten months out with a cruciate ligament injury, in the 6-0 win at Watford in September, when he answered the question about his fitness with disarming honesty.
“If I said I am the same player as I was a year ago, I would be lying,” was his response.
And Gundogan, after masterminding the FA Cup win over Burnley last weekend, has re-affirmed that belief.
But now he says that he will never be the same player again – just a different kind of player, at the same level.
“I am quite sure that I will never be the same player again that I was,” he said.
“But that doesn’t mean that I will be weaker or not of the same quality. Just a different player.
“That was the second injury on my knee, so obviously my knee doesn’t feel like the knee of a 20-year-old footballer who is at the beginning of his professional career.
“I need to do things to take care of everything, but especially the knee.
“Having treatment every day, my routines before and after games, just taking care of my body in general.
“I don’t think it’s an abnormal thing. It’s quite normal at my age you just need to be more sensible with everything.”
Gundogan is keen to stress that he is not saying his injury woes mean he is now a lesser player than he was when Pep Guardiola made him his first City signing.
“I wouldn’t say that I will never reach the level I had again, but of course I need to take more care of my body and my problems that I had in the past,” he said.
“I’m fully okay with that. It was all an experience for me. I don’t really think it makes me a different player on the field, more away from the field.
“As an example, I never really went to the gym before training as a pre-activation. Now I always try to do it and keep myself warm before I go out.
“Even when I’m outside, I remember when I was at Dortmund I would go outside and kick the ball into the goal straight away, taking free-kicks or something. I would never do that now.
“When I see the young players doing that, I think ‘Oh my God, no!’ I won’t do it and maybe I couldn’t even do that.
“I need to get myself warm first and get ready to perform. It doesn’t matter whether it’s training or a game.
“That was more my intention when I said that I’d never be the same player again.”
His two sharp assists for Sergio Aguero, to turn round the cup clash with the Clarets, signified that the football brain which made him Guardiola’s top pick, is still functioning as well as ever.
But Gundogan says that he does not measure his improving form in such terms: “It’s always good for the confidence to get assists or goals but generally I don’t define myself through these kinds of things.
“I always try to play my game for the team, so it’s more about the passing, and especially what you do against the ball – defending well, and making quick short movements to press.
“When I look at these things, especially in the last two games, it shows me I am in a good way now. I can see the finish line to my old form, which is more important than assisting or scoring.”
Gundogan is a classy footballer, but with a steely nerve – he scored a penalty in the Champions League final against Bayern Munich.
And his gentle, softly-spoken manner belies a tough upbringing in the coal mining community of Gelsenkirchen.
His grandfather Ismail moved from Turkey to work down the mine, while his dad worked as a delivery driver for the Stauder brewery in Essen and his mum worked as a cook.
“Gelsenkirchen is a city that has people from lots of different countries,” he said. “In my school or when I went to play football with friends outside in the street it was like that. “Still today my best friends are German from Morocco, from Tunisia, from Poland. Very mixed.
“I always saw it as a nice thing, seeing different cultures. It felt like a new experience, even when I was young. “My youth was very good. My parents always wanted me to have a good education so I finished school as well.
“To be honest, my parents aren’t really interested in sports.
“They like to watch it but they never played on their own. My father couldn’t even kick a ball.
“But his younger brother was the first one to play for a small team. Then my brother who was between us also joined the club and then me as well.
“The idea of my parents was to keep us way from the streets, from bad things.
“Gelsenkirchen is not a rich city. The crime is above average, so they always tried to keep us away from bad things and I think they were successful.”
That was the second injury on my knee, so obviously it doesn’t feel like the knee of a 20-year-old Ilkay Gundogan