Guardiola believes Kev injury could be a blessing

PEP Guardiola believes Kevin de Bruyne’s absence in the first half of the season could have helped City.

The Belgian was superb last year, driving the club to their third Premier League title in seven seasons with a relentless string of outstanding performances.

He carried that form into the World Cup, helping Belgium to third place.

Guardiola has been unable to start him for any Premier League games this year after separate injuries to his knees.

However, the workload of De Bruyne over the past year meant the manager did not feel his star was in the best condition, even before his injury.

“I think Kevin finished last season exhausted,” he said.

“It was so tough for him. He played a lot of minutes. A lot. It was an incredible performance, and after that he went to the World Cup.

“When he came back I had the feeling that he was a little bit tired still, and sometimes people recover quite well, sometimes mentally it takes time.

“We don’t want [him] to be injured, but maybe it helped us. Now he’s fresh in his mind, he is recovered and now he tries again to avoid the injuries and play regularly and of course he is going to be important for us, he is a special player for us.”

The form of Bernardo and David Silva have minimised the impact of De Bruyne’s absence on the team and they sit just one point off top spot after 16 games having travelled to Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham, and Chelsea.

But injuries have begun to bite recently, and with a busy December schedule Guardiola mentioned several times that his team have had just 60 hours to recover from the Hoffenheim game - it will be a big boost if De Bruyne returns today.