Manchester City fell 2-0 at Juventus on Wednesday in the Champions League, and the weight of their recent poor performances is starting to be felt.
Despite holding 69 percent possession in the match, the Sky Blues only managed three shots on target and were second-best on the evening.
For City midfielder Ilkay Gundogan, the formula for success is simple yet frustratingly unobtainable for a side that have just a single win over their last ten matches in all competitions.
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"It’s very disappointing," Gundogan told TNT Sports. "We had chances to score a few goals but at the moment it feels like every attack we concede is just so dangerous.
"I don’t know, I have a feeling sometimes we are a bit careless with duels, instead of playing simple we overcomplicate things and we missed the right timing to release the ball. Just lose the ball and give them counter attacks.
"We are built for possession, keep the ball, be strong, if you can’t do anything don't lose it. At the moment it’s not working out for us."
The result leaves City in 22nd place with two matches remaining in the league phase, with the club dangerously close to missing out on advancement to the next round altogether. It would be an unthinkable feat for a side that has been so dominant over the past several years, and Gundogan believes the Sky Blues need to get back to the basics in order to restore their status as one of the most feared sides in the world.
"You have to do the simple things as good as possible," he explained. "Work hard again, this is how you get confidence back, even in the game if you miss something, by doing small and simple things you get confidence back at the moment we are always doing the wrong things.
"I feel like we know exactly what's going wrong. If you look at the most part of games even today we actually didn’t play bad, created chances, just missed to score, in these kind of games if you give away once chance it's not easy to bounce back.
"We know what's going wrong it's just finding the switch to turn things around because even though we are not getting results, it doesn't feel like we are far off.
"As long as we don't find that click it's going to be tough, the only thing right now we can do, every single player needs to question themselves, to do better, how the player can individually sacrifice more to contribute to the team so we can get collectively back on our way."
