Manchester, July 19 (IANS) Midfielder Ilkay Gundogan conceded that Manchester City must improve and maintain their focus as they now look towards the Champions League after their FA Cup exit.
City were handed a semi-final defeat against Arsenal on Saturday as Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s double sealed a 2-0 win at Wembley.
They have two Premier League games remaining with second place assured behind champions Liverpool.
City will take on LaLiga champions Real Madrid in the second leg of their last-16 tie taking place at the Etihad Stadium on August 7, leading 2-1 in the first leg.
“We should definitely improve because the way we played today won’t be enough to go into the next round of the Champions League.
“We have to improve quite quickly because we don’t have much time. We need to try to do our best,” Gundogan told City’s website.
Talking about the FA Cup semifinal loss, he said: “We had two kind of good chances in the beginning when we won the ball in front of the Arsenal goal but after that our game was sloppy and slow and there was a lack of energy.”
“At half-time, first of all the manager but also we to each other said this is not enough and we needed more energy and more rhythm in our game to create chances,” the German international admitted.
“The energy was good (in the second half), we still struggled to create clear chances even though we had good shots but obviously the second goal killed the game.”
–IANS
dm/pks/rt