Man City’s Kevin De Bruyne issues Liverpool threat as City look to destroy quadruple dream

Kevin De Bruyne insists Manchester City are ready to join a battle royale in April and leave Liverpool with just a League Cup to show for their season’s efforts. City and Liverpool face the most gruelling month in their respective seasons as De Bruyne and co seek to land a treble and Liverpool strive to land an unprecedented quadruple.

The two lock horns at least twice in Premier League and FA Cup and possibly a third time in the Champions League semi-final first leg before May. City’s star midfielder admitted the run of nine games in 28 days should sort out the best in three competitions.

And De Bruyne insisted Pep Guardiola’s side believe it is them who will emerge with the upper hand on every battlefront. “We want to win every game, that’s our aim at the beginning of every season. We couldn’t make it in the Carabao Cup, but we are alive in the other three competitions,” he said.

“It’s going to be so hard after the international break. Every game will be very special and we are going to try and do it [win the three trophies]. We always want to win trophies, so we always like to be in these stages of all competitions.”

Both Guardiola and Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp will face a balance in order to keep their first choice line up fresh whilst not letting standards dip. With City and Liverpool seemingly locked in a battle to the death on three fronts it is the FA Cup which will be the first blood to one or the other in the semi-final at Wembley on April 16.

And with City having lost their last two visits to Wembley in the competition – to Chelsea and Arsenal – De Bruyne admitted they will go to the capital with unfinished business. He added: “We have always been there playing semi-finals every season with Pep Guardiola except one (in 2017-18).

“Just the fact of being there season after season shows the determination and the quality of this team. Even if sometimes we didn’t win there, we have always been there and we fought for the games. That in itself is a small success as a team but once we are there we want to win it again.”