KEVIN DE BRUYNE admits he is struggling physically as Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City chase glory on four fronts, hampered by a series of injuries to big-name players.
The midfielder has missed only three of City’s 39 games in all competitions and says he was feeling tired during Saturday’s 1-1 draw at Burnley.
“I was feeling it from the first minute,” he said. “I’ve said it before — you feel great for 10 games, then you feel okay for 10 games, and then the rest you feel like shit. You know, we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do. We’ve only got 15 or 16 players available at the moment so we need to get through it.”
Injuries to Benjamin Mendy, Gabriel Jesus, Leroy Sane, John Stones, David Silva, Fabian Delph, Phil Foden and Lukas Nmecha restricted City boss Guardiola to just six substitutes at Turf Moor.
The runaway Premier League leaders are not in action again until Leicester City visit the Etihad Stadium on Saturday — their longest gap between games since the November international break — and Guardiola has decided to give his entire squad three days off.
“It will do us a lot of good,” said De Bruyne. “I’m going away, it doesn’t matter where.”
City should have claimed all three points at the weekend after dominating the match. Danilo gave them a first-half lead but they were unable to add to it, with Raheem Sterling spurning a gilt-edged chance from close range before Johann Berg Gudmundsson claimed a late equaliser.
“Nobody is complaining about the way we played,” said De Bruyne. “I think we played really well and we should have scored more but it happens and it’s not even bad defending, it’s just the way it goes sometimes.
“Obviously it’s very hard and we haven’t got any players left, so maybe we feel a little bit of tiredness which makes it a little bit more difficult but I thought the way we played was exceptional.”
It must be so so hard on those poor players. Perhaps the astronomical wages might help. 200 or 300k a week might help the tiredness , maybe a weeks graft on a building site would help poor oul tired kev
@Chris Tobin:
I find it amazing to think there are still people out there who think wealthy people don’t suffer from fatigue or tiredness. The lad was simply answering a question.
@Nollaig Elliot: it must be very tiring deciding which sports car you will drive out of your garage to training the next day:p
@Nollaig Elliot: i never said he wasnt tired but it into context with us mere working mortals
De Bruyne is made of iron. Has been on the end of some horrific tackles all season but gets up and shoulders on. He’s been as impressive in defence as he has been in attack as well. His pressing and tackling has come on leaps. He’s been the second best player in the world this season. If he keeps up the form and lands a few trophies plus a good run with Belgium at the WC he’s got an outside shot at a Ballon D’Or.
@Leon: In the world!? You need to cancel your sky subscription
@Noel Ryan: He’s definitely top 5 at the moment. You won’t see De Bruyne diving that’s for sure, he just gets quietly gets on with business in every game without any extravagance, class player.
KDB is a class act. Both professionally and as a human. Rare commodity on today’s game. I hope Liverpool sign him.
@England’s Envy: could play CB better than Lovren
@Dave O Keeffe: Possibly, but never as good a CB as Lukaku lol.
@England’s Envy: you’re probably right, Liverpool have conceded 9 since VVD arrived, United have only conceded 2 in that time. 9 by the way is half of total united have conceded in the league all season
@Dave O Keeffe: Are you trying to convince me or yourself. How many have you scored. Watching United is like watching paint dry. Liverpool play best ball in Europe. By a distance. Nice tight defence last week by Jones and Co at Wembley.
@England’s Envy: we’ve scored 15, Liverpool have scored 14.
@Dave O Keeffe: sorry, that’s the other way around, Liverpool 15 United 14
Injuries didn’t restrict them to 6 players on the bench, could add an academy player, but no. And people say Mourinho doesn’t promote youth…
@No.: A lot of City’s academy is on loan in Spain or Netherlands at feeder clubs. Although ethically it’s probably off that City own other clubs so that they can grow their empire, giving players full seasons worth of experience compared to a few lousy minutes here and there is a no brainer. The rest of the actual academy at home played a game the night before the Burnley game. Nmecha, a lad from the academy was supposed to be the last name on the bench was injured. He also had two youth players on the bench already, Diaz and Tosin. A third of the bench for the top performing side in Europe all season was made up of youth players, hardly that bad now is it?
@No.: to be fair, their academy team played the night before the early Saturday kick off
No chance of Guardiola giving any of the academy players a chance no?
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