Kevin De Bruyne is still feeling the effects of the Covid infection that added to the misery of his last six months. The Manchester City star looked to be back to his best as he scored two quality goals and teed up several chances for others as the Blues routed Leeds 7-0 on Tuesday night. The City fans were hailing the inevitable return of the brilliant De Bruyne, who faced a fight to regain his place in the team after a staccato start to the season, while fellow midfielders Bernardo Silva and Ilkay Gundogan were in supreme form. But De Bruyne said the hangover from the Covid hit he took after being infected while on international duty last month, is still with him. Asked if he felt he was back at his best,
Kevin De Bruyne said: “No, I don’t think so. I still feel sometimes that my body is still adapting because sometimes I do two or three sprints and feel it, having had Covid. I’m happy that I’ve played two full 90 minutes in the week, so that is a good thing.”
But he said that the rhythm and timing, assets that have turned him from a good player into a great, are coming back.
Kevin De Bruyne said: “It’s getting better. Obviously this season is what it is. There is nothing I can do about it, I’ve been kicked in the face, kicked in my ankle and I had Covid afterwards. It’s part of football. After Covid, I came back and trained as hard as I can. With the schedule it is not that easy but I’m doing alright, I played in two games and came in as a sub in two so I’m doing what I need to do.”
It is perhaps understandable that De Bruyne says he was “kicked in the face” by Rudiger – he has no memory of the night after being concussed by the challenge! De Bruyne was laid low by the virus last month, but found it especially tough isolating himself from his young family to avoid passing on the bug.
Kevin de Bruyne said: “I was pretty sick for four days. I think it was like flu but I’ve never had that so can’t say for sure. But I had a temperature, especially in the evenings, and lost my smell and taste. After five days it was getting better but needed more time for the taste and the smell but now I’m okay. I was ten days on my own so I was running up the walls. I can’t sit still anyway. I got away from my family as I didn’t think we’d had it as a family and I didn’t want to give it to my wife and kids. It was pretty hard to see them through a glass door. Netflix, gaming and sometimes I would chill with the kids with a door in between us. I already saw Squid Game so I watched a lot of rubbish to be fair.”
De Bruyne says the act he could catch it, despite the caution around football, and be laid low by it, is a warning to others.
Kevin de Bruyne said: “I know how I got it. Somebody in the car in the national team gave it to me so it happened and when I knew the guy was positive I did a test, I was negative for the Wales game and the day after I said to the missus, let’s just do a test in the evening and see how it is and I was positive. I directly stepped to the side.”
It was a third bad blow to De Bruyne after Toni Rudiger’s brutal shoulder-charge smashed his eye socket during City’s defeat by Chelsea in the Champions League final, forcing him to leave the field in tears and spend the night in hospital, and then the ankle injury he picked up at Euro 2020 in the summer.
Kevin de Bruyne said: “It’s never nice. The ankle was the worst because playing and having pain every day is not something that you want to have but after a while it got better and better. Then I got Covid. These small kicks are sometimes the worst because you don’t see it and the next day you get into training and ‘Oooooh, that hurts a bit’ and you play on. But it’s fine.”
Pep Guardiola recently warned De Bruyne that he faced a fight to get his place back, but De Bruyne shrugged off that advice – he knew it anyway.
Kevin de Bruyne said: “It’s been like this since the beginning, since I came here. I know the team is incredible, talented, but at the end of the day I’m a competitor. I’m here to take part and I know there are some games I’ll sit out and that is never a nice feeling. Everyone wants to play all the time but I try to act always in a good way and when I’m on the pitch all I can do is perform. I know people say I got some injuries but I started really early in my career and have played almost 600 games. I’ve played a lot and mostly the injuries I get are kicks so there is nothing I can do about that. Sometimes it happens, it is maybe a good thing that you are kicked but it’ll be like this until the end of my career and I just keep going.”
