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Ilkay Gundogan helped Galatasaray to beat Liverpool in the Champions League<\/p>\nFormer Manchester City midfielder Ilkay Gundogan has made his mark on and off the pitch with new club GalatasarayIlkay Gundogan helped Galatasaray to beat Liverpool in the Champions League<\/p>\n
Ilkay Gundogan has wasted no time in making his mark at Galatasaray after leaving Manchester City<\/a>.<\/p>\n The German midfielder was keen on staying at the Etihad this season after triggering a one-year contract extension with the number of games he played in last year. However, with Pep Guardiola<\/a> wanting to cut down his squad Gundogan did not play a single minute of the first three City games and sorted a move to Galatasaray in early September.<\/p>\n In Istanbul he has settled instantly, starting six of seven games for the Turkish giants and coming off the bench in the other one. He was in the XI that beat Liverpool<\/a> in the Champions League<\/a> a few weeks ago and he will be back at the Etihad in January for their last group game.<\/p>\n It isn’t just on the pitch that Gundogan has stamped his authority. BILD report that the 34-year-old<\/a> was so horrified to see a jar of Nutella in the Galatasaray canteen that he ordered it to be thrown out.<\/p>\n Gundogan has not had sugar in his diet for years and does not eat anything after 8pm in an effort to keep playing at the highest level for as long as he can. The midfielder was one of the players most used by Guardiola last season despite an injury crisis running through the squad and said in summer he believes he can keep going for years.<\/p>\n On leaving City, Gundogan wrote an open letter to supporters in the Manchester Evening News thanking them for their support and the club for agreeing to rip up his contract so that he could join Galtasaray without any problems.<\/p>\n “Making this final step away from Manchester feels very hard, but I completely respect that the club wants to enter a new chapter. But on the other side I still feel very good and ready to play as many games as possible – that’s why I decided to move on,” he said.<\/p>\n “I get the opportunity to play again for a Champions League club \u2013 but not just any Champions League club \u2013 no, for my favourite club from childhood days!<\/p>\n “Manchester City has always acted with incredible professionalism and ambition, and I will never forget what this club has done for me over all these years. Even now they stuck to our gentleman agreement and made the departure without any complications possible – this is not always given these days in football.<\/p>\n “Looking back, most of my time here has been filled with joy, success, and unforgettable memories. Together, we\u2019ve achieved things I\u2019ll cherish forever and I\u2019ll always be proud to have played my part in this journey.”<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Here at the Manchester Evening News, we\u2019re dedicated to bringing you the best Manchester City coverage and analysis.<\/p>\n Make sure you don\u2019t miss out on the latest City news by joining our free WhatsApp group. You can get all the breaking news and best analysis sent straight to your phone by clicking here<\/a> to subscribe.<\/p>\n You can also subscribe to our free newsletter service. Click here<\/a> to be sent all the day\u2019s biggest stories.<\/p>\n And finally, if you\u2019d rather listen to our expert analysis then make sure to check out our Talking City podcast. Our shows are available on all podcast platforms, including Spotify<\/a> and Apple Podcasts<\/a>, and you can also watch along on YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Manchester City midfielder Ilkay Gundogan has made his mark on and off the pitch with new club…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[748,393,4884,27190,2465,1036,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-490947","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-ilkay-gundogan","12":"tag-manchester","13":"tag-manchester-city-fc","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}