Guardiola always wants to evolve – De Bruyne

Manchester City midfielder Kevin De Bruyne has hailed Pep Guardiola’s desire to try new things and attempt to evolve as a manager.

Guardiola has received his fair share of criticism in recent weeks for a tendency to make regular changes to his starting XI and for trying to radically alter City’s style of play.

Nevertheless, De Bruyne is enjoying working with the Spaniard and feels the Etihad Stadium side are on the right track.

“Obviously Guardiola is a great coach,” De Bruyne told Sky Sports.

“It is what I expected from the beginning. His style has always been there, it has little small changes every now and then because I think he also wants to evolve as a trainer by trying new things to get better.

“I am enjoying the way that we are playing. I think we are playing good football and the way that we want to play is very positive. I think people enjoy watching us play which is a good thing. 

“We are recovering the ball very fast and that is really important. You have to work on it as a team. There is no such thing as pressing on your own. You need to know where to stand and you have to coordinate that with the whole team together. Obviously it is very difficult to do if anyone slacks off but everyone is doing their job now.

“Because there is a new system and new tactics we have been training a lot on these things. It is the preparation that is the big difference.”

City have been struggling for consistency this term, but De Bruyne feels they have already shown they are more than a match for most opponents if they are on top of their game.

“We are a team who can win any game,” he added.

“Even before the Barcelona game we knew that. But it is not about [a] high [amount of] points now, it is about high points at the end of the season. But to be there in the spring we need to maintain our high level throughout.

“We are still in the three competitions so we will see what we can do, but the aim is to be on top in everything.

“Fortunately, there are class players here so the coach has a lot of choices to swap. In a season here where you can play 60 games, that’s obviously necessary.”