The Belgian star guided his team to victory and stressed they won’t be approaching things differently in the wake of recent off-field drama <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Manchester City midfielder Kevin De Bruyne insisted it is business as usual for the club after a 2-0 Premier League win over West Ham, despite their recent two-year ban from European competitions.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Pep Guardiola’s side are challenging UEFA’s\u00a0ruling relating to Financial Fair Play breaches between 2012 and 2016 with the club\u00a0insisting they’ve done nothing wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A Champions League ban would have massive ramifications for City with a number of players likely to seek\u00a0new clubs to ensure they can compete in Europe’s premier competition.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n More teams<\/p>\n <\/i><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n De Bruyne however showed no signs of distraction on Wednesday night as he bagged a goal and assist in City’s routine victory against the Hammers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Asked about the club’s European ban post-match, the Belgian star stressed it’s a situation\u00a0the side won’t be letting affect them on the pitch.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Obviously we were on holiday when the statement happened and we came back and just played football,” De Bruyne told Sky Sports.\u00a0<\/p>\n “The situation is what it is. We came back and trained like normal. For us, nothing really changed.<\/p>\n “We still have a lot to play for with the two cups and Champions League so let’s hope we can find rhythm as quickly as possible and win some titles.”<\/p>\n City’s match against West Ham was previously delayed due to severe storms meaning it was the club’s first match in 16 days.\u00a0<\/p>\n As such, De Bruyne conceded his side were far from their best as they claimed three points to strengthen their spot on second place – still a massive 22 points shy of league leaders Liverpool.\u00a0<\/p>\n “It was ok. I think we saw its been three weeks without football and we felt a little bit of rustiness but we played a good game,” De Bruyne said.<\/p>\n On Aymeric Laporte’s return, De Bruyne added: “With the ball he’s very confident and gives us options and he’s been doing this for years. He helped us win a lot of titles and is doing really well.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n “I know when you’re injured so long it takes time, but the way he performed today will give him confidence and give the team confidence.”<\/p>\n Guardiola’s side next face Leicester City in the Premier League on Saturday\u00a0night with the third-placed Foxes four points shy of City on the table.\u00a0<\/p>\n After that match, they’ll head to Spain to tackle Real Madrid in the first-leg of their Champions League last-16 tie.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Belgian star guided his team to victory and stressed they won’t be approaching things differently in the wake of recent off-field drama Manchester City midfielder Kevin De Bruyne insisted it is business as usual for the club after a 2-0 Premier League win over West Ham, despite their recent two-year ban from European competitions.\u00a0…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3977\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}