De Bruyne wants to win title at United
Manchester City want to give their supporters a “historic” day by clinching the Premier League title against bitter rivals Manchester United, Kevin de Bruyne has revealed.
Pep Guardiola’s City face the mouth-watering prospect of being crowned league champions for the third time since 2012 if they beat United at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday.
And the brilliant Belgian knows that claiming the title against their arch-rivals will add an extra shine to the glow of their success.
“We are going to relish this position,” De Bruyne said.
“These are the games you play the whole season for. It would be wonderful, something different — you know how it goes between them, you know the history, so it would be historic,” the Belgian added.
“The sooner we do it, the better. Then we can focus on other games. It’s a tough run. We play Liverpool, United, Liverpool again and then Tottenham. It’s pretty impressive, eh?”
City cruised to a 3-1 victory over Everton on Saturday to maintain their 16-point advantage at the top of the table.
De Bruyne felt the team delivered a sublime display at Goodison Park and the Belgian playmaker is hopeful they can deliver a similar performance at Liverpool in the first leg of Champions League quarter-final tomorrow.
De Bruyne has been at the heart of everything good about City this year, in a season in which they have set new standards — both in terms of free-flowing attacking football and entertainment. If they are to overcome the Reds much will depend on him. Not least because City’s only league defeat this season came at Anfield in a game where De Bruyne was as ineffective as at any time this campaign. Guardiola’s men conceded three goals in nine second-half minutes as Liverpool won 4-3 back in January.
And the 26-year-old said City will not be dwelling too much on that defeat.
“It’s the Champions League, the quarterfinal, it is all or nothing. You have two games, so hopefully we will go there, do our thing and have a good game,” De Bruyne said.
“I think in last game against Liverpool we had a spell of 10 minutes where we lost the control... otherwise I think we did all right.
“In the end it was 4-3. it happens, you learn about these things, and I think we know we have to control it better. Let’s see if we can control it better, do these things properly.”