De Bruyne wants City to take onus in title race

Win for Sky Blues could see them go ahead of Leicester on goal difference

Manchester City midfielder Kevin de Bruyne has urged his teammates to increase the pressure on title rivals Arsenal and Leicester City when they travel to the King Power Stadium to face the latter on Tuesday.

City trail Leicester by three points ahead of their clash and a win would lift them above their surprise title rivals thanks to a superior goal difference.

Manuel Pellegrini’s men made amends for last week’s 2-1 loss to Arsenal by demolishing Sunderland 4-1 at the Etihad on Saturday, and while their win was welcomed with fervour, the sight of captain Vincent Kompany limping back to the stands with just 10 minutes played would have taken some of the gloss off the win. However, De Bruyne has called on his teammates to make a rebound from the setback.

“We don’t just need to do it for Vincent, but it would be nice to impose ourselves in the title race once again,” said De Bruyne. “Everybody knows how Vincent is. I have known him for seven or eight years in the national team. He is a big character and one of the leaders in this team, so it helps when he is fit. But we need to cope without him, even though it is harder.”

Meanwhile, Leicester City defender Danny Simpson believes that his team has the character and spirit to put Saturday’s loss to Liverpool behind them when they host City.

The Foxes were beaten 1-0 at Anfield to record only their second loss of the season that snapped their unbeaten 10-game run in the league.

“It was tough, but it has been a tough few weeks,” Simpson told the club website. “We know we will pick ourselves up. We are an honest bunch, we will look at it and we will react in the right way against Manchester City.”

He added, “It is a setback but we will bounce back. We have got a great team with great characters and great spirit. We have got [Manchester] City at home now and with our fans, we will get straight at them.”

Leicester manager Claudio Ranieri has also asked his players to ‘clear their minds’ and take the positives from the game. “It was a good lesson,” he told the club website. “We defended well and closed the space well, but we need to improve when we want to go straight away and score the goal.”

Published in The Express Tribune, December 29^th, 2015.

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