Kevin De Bruyne makes Man City job easy for Pep Guardiola - Manchester Evening News

Kevin De Bruyne stepped up when Manchester City needed him to pick up three priceless points in their Treble chase.

Pep Guardiola admitted after the 4-2 win over Crystal Palace that his side were not at their best as he bemoaned the schedule and certain decisions made during the international break that have left some players unavailable or running on empty. De Bruyne did not go away with Belgium last month because of a groin injury and played against Arsenal but was left on the bench for the midweek win over Aston Villa.

Phil Foden scored a hat-trick that night to highlight his importance to the team, but he was then benched for Palace with De Bruyne given the opportunity to shine in the middle. He came up with two brilliant goals and an assist to help City overcome some rocky moments and stay in the race for the Premier League title.

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Guardiola saw his side low on mental as well as physical energy, but also witnessed De Bruyne rising above it all. The coach was blowing kisses to his star after his first goal and spoke afterwards about the Belgian being the difference between City winning the game and not.

"We were not solid like we normally are for the well-organised defence and transitions," he said. "But we give away the first goal and other actions.

"But it's more the consequences for the fact of three days, three days. The mental energy we waste more than physically is tremendous, which is why it sometimes happens.

"But today Kevin won us the game. This type of game, sometimes it's Phil [Foden], Erling [Haaland], Julian [Alvarez] - the people up front.

"Today Kevin, without him today maybe we'd not be able to win. We talk about tactics, managers. Give me players like Kevin and these kind of games are easy."

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2024-04-07 06:00:00Z