Ilkay Gundogan admitted Wednesday's Carabao Cup defeat at Southampton was 'not easy to take' and has warned his teammates that they must up their game markedly if City are to have any chance of winning the Manchester derby.
City were eliminated from the cup on a hugely disappointing night at St. Mary's, with two goals inside five first-half minutes ultimately sealing a 2-0 win for the home side.
There were four changes from the City side that beat Chelsea 4-0 over the weekend, but with his side needing a swift reply, Guardiola made three changes off the bench at half-time. Despite the introduction of Kevin De Bruyne and, later, Erling Haaland, City failed to register a single shot on target for the first time since 2018 and eventually exited the competition with little more than a fizzle.
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"We’re disappointed with the result but also the performance," Gundogan told Sky Sports after the final whistle. "It was definitely not what we wanted. We had a good chance today to secure another semi-final in the Carabao Cup but unfortunately with that performance we had no chance. Credit to Southampton, they did well but it was not at all good enough from us.
"We were not aggressive enough, not winning duels and giving them too many opportunities to play. With the ball, we just made a lot of mistakes, missed a lot of passes, gave them the ball too easily and this resulted in two goals in the first-half. It's difficult to come back after conceding two. Today we were not good enough to create chances, to score a goal.
"We knew from the past that it is always tough against Southampton like this. We knew they were going to be aggressive and that they would try to press and invite us to get in the middle. This is exactly what they did. We didn't have a solution and now it’s about taking a tough result - especially before a derby, you can imagine it’s not easy to take."
City enter the build-up to this weekend's derby in the worst possible way, knowing that a similar performance would certainly end in defeat against an in-form United side.
"It’s never easy for confidence to lose a game before such a big derby but we go to Old Trafford," the German added. "We've done quite well over there in recent years but it also feels like it’s a United side probably stronger than ever in the recent past. They’re full of confidence and will play great football. We need a much much better performance than today."
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