Manchester City boss has challenged Belgian maestro to rediscover his best on Europe’s main stage
Report from Independent states that Pep Guardiola has challenged Kevin De Bruyne to raise his game by going back to basics as Manchester City’s season prepares to enter a defining period.
Although City face RB Leipzig in the second leg of their Champions League round of 16 tie at the Etihad Stadium tonight and then play Vincent Kompany’s Championship leaders Burnley in the FA Cup quarter-finals four days later.
Whereas De Bruyne has long been indispensable to Guardiola, there have been signs over the past two months of that beginning to change. The Belgium midfielder has failed to start in six of the past 14 matches for which he has been available and his form has fluctuated, sometimes quite sharply.
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It must be noted that De Bruyne missed the first leg against Leipzig in Germany through illness, when Marco Rose’s side came from behind to claim a deserved 1-1 draw and leave the tie delicately poised and is expected to start the return match. But Guardiola says he wants De Bruyne to start doing the “simple things” better in midfield as City target that elusive first Champions League crown and a fifth Premier League title in six seasons.
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“It’s been a difficult season I would say for all of us, me included, with the World Cup and many things so I’d say the same – I’m not going to discover Kevin,” the City manager said. “Kevin has an ability to do it. What I’d like – I spoke many times to him – is to go to the easy principles and do it well. He has an incredible ability to make an assist, to score goals and see passes like no one else.
“But I always have belief they will increase and will get better when the simple things, like don’t lose the ball, the mobility, the incredible capacity to be active in the movement, the simple things, [you] do it again better and better. When this is going to happen the rest will come along.
