Owen Hargreaves says Ilkay Gundogan has earned the right to be a voice for Manchester City and speak of the team's ambitions this season.
Pep Guardiola has previously scolded Oleksandr Zinchenko for talking up City's quadruple chances but, speaking ahead of his side's Champions League game against Borussia Dortmund, Gundogan said he felt confident of being successful on all fronts if his teammates play to their capabilities.
Hargreaves believes this is a different situation to ZInchenko, as Gundogan can speak from the experience of winning trophies in his career.
He said: “I think he’s earned the right to be the voice for this team.
“He’s arguably been, with Ruben Dias, the player of the season in the Premier League, so he’s earned that.
“He’s their top scorer and I think Joleon Lescott has made a good point - if it’s a young guy talking, you’d think, ‘don’t put any pressure on us’, whereas I think Gundogan understands that this is a unique opportunity for them to do something special.”
Earlier, Hargreaves' BT Sport colleague Lescott had played down the notion that Guardiola would be disgruntled with Gundogan outlining his ambitions this season.
He said: “It’s different to what it was with Zinchenko, I don’t think Pep will be so quick to bat him down as he’s talking from experience.
“He’s challenged for titles, he;s been in Champions League finals, so for me it’s a case of he’s done it, and he’s now in a scenario where he can talk from experience.”
Gundogan had said that the level of expectation City players put on themselves mean he is confident of being successful.
He said: “Every single competition we take part in, we just try to go as far as possible because it’s the fact that all the games are so important, it doesn’t really matter which competition you as players are playing in.
“Every single competition is now at such an important stage. Everyone who is on the pitch has to try and give it all, we maintain a level of expectation on ourselves as well.
“Then I think we can be successful in every single competition.”
