"I didn't come here to..." Gundogan's harsh words against his teammates at Barcelona

Barcelona suffered a tough defeat this Saturday in the first 'Clasico' of the 2023/24 season. While it was not unexpected, because they were facing one of the best teams in Europe, it was painful especially because of the circumstances. Los Blaugranas were up on the scoreboard for more than half the match thanks to Ilkay Gundogan's goal, but in the second half Jude Bellingham scored the equaliser. And in stoppage time the English midfielder grabbed the winner.

This left Barcelona with nothing, but having made a great effort throughout the match and being superior to their rivals most of the time. In the La Liga standings, Real Madrid and Girona are now leaders with 28 points, 4 more than Los Culés.

After the match, Ilkay Gundogan gave an interview to the official La Liga channel and was very hard on his own teammates: "I have to be honest, not as much as I wish. Because I don't want to say something wrong to be honest, but I was in the dressing room and of course people are disappointed but especially after such a big game and such a result, I wish more frustration, more anger and more disappointment".

He added: "This is a little bit the problem. I don't know, there has to be more emotion, especially when you lose and you know you can perform better and do better in certain situations and you just don't react and this just transfers to the pitch at the end of the day."

He is worried

The German midfielder assured that Barcelona "need to make a huge step in that otherwise Real Madrid or even Girona is going to run away" and made clear what his objective is at Barcelona: “I didn't come here to lose these types of games or to let that gap create. There's also a responsibility from myself, from a more experienced player, to not allow the squad to just let things happen, we need resistance.”