Ilkay Gündoğan has shown his pride in wearing Manchester City legend Colin Bell’s famous number eight shirt after Germany pitched a sack to help City to a 5-0 victory over West Bromwich Albion.
The midfielder opened the scoring in the sixth minute, throwing into Joao Cancelo’s pass and shooting accurately into the corner.
Cancelo then made two with a sublime strike, before Gundogan found the net again with a cool finish with his left foot.
Riyad Mahrez and Raheem Sterling found the net as well, but Gundogan in particular was filled with pride to be the striker against the Baggies with the number eight on his back, on the day his family City honored Bell at his funeral at St. Peter’s Church in Hale after his tragic death earlier this month.
“I’m proud to wear his number and of course I try to represent him as well as he can on the pitch,” he said. Today, it makes me proud to spend this number. “
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Gundogan missed his sixth and seventh Premier League goals this season at the Hawthorns and admitted there is no specific reason for his fertile form at the moment.
“I don’t know how to be honest! It’s no secret, I’m just trying to be in the right places at the right times.
“I’ve played a more offensive part in the last few weeks and I try to make the right decisions when I get the chance near the front box. I’ll try my best.”
The 30-year-old’s first goal was expertly set by Cancelo, who has been one of the standout players for City this season, an idea raised by Gundogan.
“He has this ability. He plays a little bit more in the center when we have the ball and gets a lot of rubbing. He has the quality to put those balls in.
“I knew how I saw him in space and he was perfect. He’s doing well, everyone’s doing well, especially for him in the last few weeks. We have to maintaining the rhythm and these features to maintain our level. “
The victory sees Pep Guardiola’s men rise to the top of the league table, leapfrog Manchester United rivals and Gundogan feels the team is thriving from the manager’s move. .
“As I said before, we all do our best, it doesn’t matter who plays. In fact, we have had a few players over the last few weeks in different situations who need to due to COVID and injuries.
“Kevin [De Bruyne] not a big loss for us for the next few games but we will have players who will get more game time now over the next few games, we all need to be involved.
“Everyone will give us different traits and different upgrades. We have to keep going.”