Ilkay Gundogan was the captain of Manchester City’s treble-winning side for a reason.
Softly spoken yet often deadly serious, when the German speaks his team-mates listen, and we can be assured that Barcelona’s squad would have heard every word he said to the TV cameras after the Clasico defeat at the weekend.
At 33 years of age, it’s likely that Gundogan hasn’t got too many years left at the very top level and the part of his speech where he noted that he “didn’t come here (Barcelona) to lose these type of games,” will have arguably struck a chord.