Manchester City gunning for all four trophies, says Kevin De Bruyne
Kevin De Bruyne expects Manchester City to compete on four fronts this season despite their injury problems at the start of the campaign.
City were without seven first-team players for their opening win at Wolves, with Sergio Agüero, Aymeric Laporte, Bernardo Silva, Joao Cancelo, Eric García and Oleksandr Zinchenko injured and Ilkay Gundogan isolating with coronavirus.
Guardiola will field Academy players for Thursday’s Carabao Cup tie against Bournemouth but De Bruyne feels City’s squad can defend their title in that competition and also maintain a challenge in the Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup.
“For us, all four is in the mind, that’s the mentality,” he said. “It is obviously very hard but we came into today knowing that it is going to be a very hard game. We didn’t train a lot but I think the performance was really good and that’s good for us.
“I think the motivation doesn’t change if you win or you lose. When you start a new season there is new aspirations, you want to win the most as possible and we want to win everything.”
Fernandinho captained City during their win at Molineux, with De Bruyne revealing the squad voted for their new skipper following David Silva’s departure at the end of last season.
“What we do every year is everybody votes for their captains and he came out on top,” De Bruyne said. “Everybody trusts him, he has been here for eight years so he knows the team in and out and deserves to lead this team.
“Obviously, he cannot be the only one and there are people that need to help. When you go on the pitch you need 11 captains in one way or another. He is the leader but the rest of the team needs to follow that, speak up or do whatever to help the team.”
