Update: Ilkay Gundogan has cemented his Man City status ahead of summer transfer call News

Manchester City midfielder Ilkay Gundogan has secured a spot in Pep Guardiola’s squad for next season but may still leave

They say never go back, and for a good chunk of this season Ilkay Gundogan must have been replaying those words. Having had the perfect Manchester City goodbye in 2023, the return turned out to be anything but a fairytale.

It seemed like too good to be true when Gundogan’s situation at Barcelona unravelled last summer and he picked up the phone to Pep Guardiola to ask about a surprise comeback. City’s manager put the wheels in motion immediately for one of his favourite players and the deal was done for the man who captained the team to an immortal Treble to step out in Blue once again.

City fans may have been crying out for more of a statement midfield signing to help Rodri out, but there were no dissenting voices over Gundogan on a free. After all, he had been one of the best players in La Liga for the one year he had enjoyed at Barcelona.

However, things went south very quickly. Much had changed in the 12 months that Gundogan had been away – both at City and in the Premier League.

“I asked Gundo yesterday, two years ago you were here, you were one year in Barcelona, you come back here – did you see changes in the Premier League?” the manager said in February. “He said massively.

“Gundo won the Treble, went to Barcelona and it was just one year. The difference was unbelievable, it’s the truth.

“The teams are much, much, much better, in all departments. People prepare so well.”

Whether in the rare games he managed to play in his preferred No.8 role or the many more matches where he was shoehorned in to provide cover for the injured Rodri or Mateo Kovacic or Nico Gonzalez, Gundogan looked like the game had moved on from him. If the issue for Kevin De Bruyne this season has been that he hasn’t been present enough, Gundogan has been almost too present.

An immaculate injury record that means just four outfield players have more minutes than him this season has been overshadowed by the content of those performances in City’s worst season since before Gundogan or Guardiola first arrived in Manchester.

That is why, despite the player automatically triggering a new deal with the minutes he has played, he may still end up going anyway.

Leave or stay though, Gundogan has not damaged his reputation at the club precisely because of the fact he has never thrown in the towel. It would have been easy for the 33-year-old to claim tiredness or fatigue at any point in the season yet Bernardo Silva and Stefan Ortega are the only others in the squad to have made every matchday squad since he re-signed in August.

He is still nowhere near the player he was when he left, although since Gonzalez joined in January to provide more stability in midfield there have been signs of the old master.

As Guardiola said on Saturday: “The Gundo from Leicester, the Gundo from Bournemouth, the Gundo from today is the Gundo I remember.”

Asked about transfer priorities, the manager spoke about needing players who are available to play three times a week as the most important thing for next season. Gundogan ticks that bracket.

That doesn’t mean he will stay, with the player intelligent enough to know how this season has gone and with interest from Turkey for next season. However, it does ensure that when he does go it will be out of the front door with his head held high and the prolonged gratitude of a fanbase.