Pep Guardiola has heaped praise on one Manchester City player following the recent 4-2 victory over Crystal Palace.
Following on from their midweek Premier League win over Aston Villa, the Blues picked up another three points by securing a 4-2 victory against Palace at Selhurst Park.
After this game in south London, the City manager highlighted one particular player who had a significant impact on the match.
Guardiola amazed by ‘unbelievable’ City star against Palace
Speaking after the Palace game (via Man City), Guardiola had this to say about Kevin De Bruyne and his performance against the Eagles.
He said: “Without him we would not be able to win this. You talk about managers but players like Kevin make this game easy. He has been one of the best players in the history of City. To sustain this for nine years at City, and have that consistency is amazing.
“The first goal is unbelievable. The assist is unbelievable. Really good. Mentally for sure [Kevin is fresh]. Kevin is like everyone, on the bus in the locker room and laugh. The body language dictates a lot how he is. All the players, especially Kevin, hopefully they can sustain it.
“100 goals is a lot and a lot of assists too. Really good. We were not solid like normally in terms of defensively and on the transition, that’s how we gave away the first goal. [Playing] Three days, three days, three days. We had the mental energy. It’s more than physicality, it’s demanding. Sometimes it’s Phil [Foden], Erling [Haaland] or Julian [Alvarez], today it was Kevin.”
Having been an unused substitute in the 4-1 win over Villa on Wednesday, the midfielder completed 90 minutes against Palace before being replaced by Bernardo Silva in injury time.
After the Blues found themselves 1-0 down in the third minute of the game, De Bruyne scored his first goal of the game 10 minutes later.
In the second half, the Belgian, who the club paid £54m to sign back in 2015, then assisted Erling Haaland’s goal before scoring his 100th goal for City to put them 4-1 up.
This performance ultimately earned the midfielder a perfect match rating of 10/10 from SofaScore, making it very easy to see why Guardiola was so full of praise for him on this occasion.