Thursday 11 April 2019 10:09, UK
Ilkay Gundogan claims Manchester City are "too nervous" in the Champions League and says they were "not brave enough" at Tottenham.
City go into the second leg of the quarter-final against Spurs at the Etihad Stadium next week 1-0 down from the first-leg after Heung-Min Son scored on Tuesday night with 12 minutes to go.
Gundogan, who started at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, told Sky Deutschland: "We were not brave enough in the game and we made a lot of simple mistakes.
"I have the feeling we are nervous in important Champions League games. We always make the wrong decisions.
"In these matches we always want to do something special because it means [going through to the] Champions League semi-finals. Sometimes less is more.
Pep Guardiola's side managed only one shot on target aside from Sergio Aguero's 13th-minute penalty that was saved by Hugo Lloris.
"Negative events like Aguero's penalty miss always set us back far too much," added Gundogan.
"Had we scored from the penalty, we'd have taken Tottenham apart.
"But instead we withdrew from the game. That must not happen to a big team. That's why we're not there yet."
Fernandinho, who started alongside Gundogan in midfield, with Kevin De Bruyne and Leroy Sane left on the bench, offered a more positive assessment of Manchester City's performance.
"You can see we played a little bit different, especially in a defensive way with two holding midfielders," Fernandinho said.
"We tried to close the midfield because they try to concentrate their game in the middle. We tried to do that and we did [it] so well but at the end we conceded a goal.
"We are going to see if Pep likes it for the next game. Otherwise we will change and try to go for the game and win.
"It wasn't the result we wanted but we have the tie at home now. We have all the conditions to play better and win the game and go to the semi-final.
"But it won't be easy. We have to see what we did wrong to fix it and to play better in the next game."
