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Ilkay Gundogan admitted champions Manchester City will probably be out of the title race at the start of December if they lose to Liverpool on Sunday.
City, who have lost their last three games and not won in six matches in all competitions, go to Anfield eight points behind Arne Slot’s league leaders and face a double-digit deficit if they lose again.
And former captain Gundogan feels defeat could be terminal for their chances of winning a fifth straight league title as he accepted the gulf could become too big to bridge.
“To stay in the title race probably yes, because 11 points would be a huge gap,” he said. “It’s still early in the season. Anfield is always tough, no matter the situation. We’ve struggled in recent years going there. We know Liverpool are a great team full of confidence right now. It’s going to be as tough as it is possible to be. But that sums up the situation right now.
“It seems we have to go through this season the toughest way possible. Obviously we’ve done this ourselves a little bit but hopefully we can get out of that as quickly as possible, especially in such a big game.”
City drew 3-3 against Feyenoord on Tuesday despite being 3-0 up after 74 minutes and Gundogan said: “It feels like a loss. If we lose 2-0 at home obviously we would be disappointed but the way we did it today, urgh, could have only been worse if we’d conceded a fourth goal and lost the game.
“We obviously we have to look at ourselves and try to do the things we can do better, as quick as possible. We take it, stay humble, head down and try to put in the work in the next few days and prepare as good as possible for a tough game.”
Gundogan said he could not put his finger on what is going wrong for City as he deemed their surprise slump inexplicable.
“I don’t know,” he said. “So quickly after the game I don’t have the answers. The goals we conceded are think are explicable, in terms of the way we conceded them. There is only ourselves to blame. The situation, I don’t know, the way things are going right now, it is a bit inexplicable.
“[After] 75 minutes, 3-0 up and controlling the game, then ugh, giving it away so easily. They also were ruthless. It is probably more us to blame but they just punished us in every situation they got, scoring three goals. Obviously it is very tough to take.”