De Bruyne eyes titles over unbeaten season

Kevin De Bruyne says Manchester City’s squad, like manager Pep Guardiola, are not entertaining thoughts of going the Premier League season unbeaten, despite demolishing Tottenham 4-1 on Saturday.

City sit 14 points clear at the top of the table, having racked up a 16th straight win – extending their own English league record.

Guardiola has seen his side beat each of the teams that finished in the top six last season and this was as one-sided as any of them, Ilkay Gundogan and De Bruyne finding the net before Raheem Sterling added a late double.

The former Barcelona boss now holds records for the longest winning runs in England, Germany and Spain, but has been firm in his belief that City will be unable to match Arsenal’s unbeaten Premier League title-winners of 2003-04.

Asked if City’s players held a different opinion, De Bruyne told BT Sport: “No, absolutely not.

“I think we are here to win titles. We had a great start but there is still more than half [of the season remaining] it’s very difficult, it’s very hard.

Sweet sixteen

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— Manchester City (@ManCity) December 16, 2017

“But the way we’re going is very good we want to win each game and we’re doing a good job.”

The Belgian added: “We know the quality of the team is very, very high and I think this [quality] is more mentally.

“Every game is a new game, we want to win every game. 

“We are busy, we know what’s coming in the next couple of weeks. We are busy with the games that we are playing at the moment and mentally we want to keep going and it was a great performance.”

Gundogan stole in to head home the opener in the 14th minute, his first goal of the season.

The Germany midfielder’s City career has been punctuated by serious knee injuries and he was delighted to have contributed to such a commanding victory.

He said: “Today was a special performance from all the team. I’m happy to be on the scoresheet. I thought we did an incredible job and could’ve scored a lot more goals, incredible performance and we are happy to beat a team like Tottenham.

“I’ve been through tough times and especially games like today, where you are able to improve self-confidence, are very important for me at the moment. I’ll try to keep going over the next games and today was a good day.”