Guardiola urges City players to keep belief despite winless run

Belgium midfielder Kevin De Bruyne has revealed that Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has urged his stars to keep their belief despite a five-game winless streak.

City’s 1-1 draw on Sunday was their fifth game without victory in all competitions and it came after a 4-0 drubbing away to Barcelona in the Champions League in midweek.

The Spaniard’s tactics of insisting City play the ball out from the back has come under fire, but De Bruyne said Guardiola has reinstated his belief in his methods and wants the players to keep pushing in that direction.

“He just told us to believe. He doesn’t want us to have doubts in the way that we are playing,” De Bruyne told the Daily Mail.

“He wanted to make sure that we know the way we are playing now is the good way. That was the message. There are a lot of risks in how we play, we know that.

“I know this is not a very patient world but we are trying something very new. There will be ups and downs.

“Other teams will adapt to us but everything will be OK in the end. We know we have to learn everything perfectly for this to work.”

City’s next game will be on Wednesday in the EFL Cup where they make the short trip to Old Trafford to face Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United side.

Neither team are in good form at the moment, and with a hectic schedule ahead of them, De Bruyne reckons the only way to get out of their crisis is to fix things on the pitch.

“We are playing all the time so we don’t really have real sessions and that’s hard,” De Bruyne added.

“The goals that we have conceded have been more like mistakes from us, rather than us being blown apart. So if we can minimise them it will be better for us, we know that.”