Pep Guardiola wants to trim his Manchester City squad this summer and Ilkay Gundogan is one player who could leave the Etihad.
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Ilkay Gundogan
Ilkay Gundogan scores his second goal against Al Ain
Ilkay Gundogan expects players to leave Manchester City this summer, but said the squad should continue to compete with each other in training to force their way into Pep Guardiola's plans.
Gundogan has been linked with an exit during the transfer window and Turkish giants Galatasaray are showing an interest in the 34-year-old, who scored twice in City's 6-0 rout against Al Ain in the Club World Cup.
That earned him the player of the match award, but he is one of several City players with their future on the line. Guardiola has named a 27-man squad for the Club World Cup, while Kyle Walker, Kalvin Phillips, Mateo Kovacic, Jack Grealish and James McAtee haven't been selected. All bar the injured Kovacic are expected to leave.
With Guardiola keen to reduce his squad size, there could yet be more departures. Gundogan failed to reach the heights of his first spell at the Etihad when he returned from Barcelona last season.
But he said Guardiola's comments about trimming his squad haven't been discussed among the players, and although he expects departures, he knows City still need a high standard in reserve.
"So far not that much to be honest," he said when asked if the possibility of more departures had been a topic of conversation within the squad.
"If we look at recent years, I feel like this team always has many, many players on the highest level, and we always had at least three, four, five top players sitting on the bench and waiting for their moment, especially in big games.
"I think the manager has done really well in recent years with giving everyone game time, everyone who performs at the training sessions will get sooner or later his opportunity.
"I'm sure in case no one should leave until the end of the transfer window - I'm sure that's going to happen as well - but it's important to compete also between each other because at the end of the day that brings the best out of everyone and this is what the club needs."
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Gundogan's first goal against Al Ain was a cross that dropped beyond goalkeeper Khalid Eisa, with the German admitting as much after, but his second showed good footwork and a neat finish after good work from Bernardo.
"I was a bit stuck between doing actually what turned out at the end, but also cross the ball to the second post because I knew the second ball is always very dangerous," he said.
"So between two things in my mind, it turned out to be perfect actually and obviously I'm taking it and I was very happy about it. Happy to score a second one as well, the ball from Bernardo was perfect, the timing of the run was really good and then first touch had to be perfect to be honest with you because there were too many opponents in between and I could continue my run."
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