City not far away from Euro joy – De Bruyne

MAN CITY: Belgian midfielder reflects on shock Champions League exit

Kevin De Bruyne believes Manchester City are close to cracking the Champions League despite another premature exit.

City suffered quarter-final anguish for a third successive year as they went down 3-1 to unfancied Lyon in Lisbon on Saturday.

It was an unusually disjointed, overlycautious and joyless performance from a City side that looked so impressive in defeating Real Madrid last week and had run up some other big wins since lockdown.

Despite that, De Bruyne felt the difference came down to small margins.

“It’s a little bit of a shame because we had good hopes to do well this year,” said the Belgium playmaker, who had given City hope at the Jose Alvalade Stadium when he made it 1-1 on 69 minutes.

“I don’t think we are far away. At this level it’s small details and here the difference was we made mistakes and they scored, and the chances we created we didn’t score (from). That’s the minimal difference.

“In the first half, we didn’t play the way we usually do. We didn’t create enough, we didn’t find the chances.

“In the second half we played much better, we created many chances, but the main difference was that they had two chances in the second half and they scored two goals.”

Questions have been asked of Pep Guardiola’s tactics, with the City boss playing a three-man defence with two deep midfielders in Rodri and Ilkay Gundogan shielding them.

It was a plan that did not work and left the likes of De Bruyne, Raheem Sterling and

Gabriel Jesus further up the field too isolated as a well-organised Lyon defence soaked up much pressure.

The tireless De Bruyne pulled City back into the game when he cancelled out Maxwel Cornet’s first-half opener but controversy followed when substitute Moussa Dembele restored Lyon’s lead despite a possible foul in the build-up.

There was a lengthy delay while VAR checked a coming together between Dembele and Aymeric Laporte but the goal was given.

● De Bruyne has been named the 2019-20 Premier League player of the season. The Belgian produced 20 assists during the top flight campaign to equal Thierry Henry’s record and scored 13 times.

Liverpool full-back Trent Alexanderarnold clinched young player of the season while Tottenham attacker Son Heung-min’s strike against Burnley in December – where he ran the length of the pitch – scooped goal of the season.