Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne targets improvement despite great start

Manchester City midfielder Kevin De Bruyne says he is fully focused on improving his performances despite making a flying start to life at the club.

The 24-year-old, currently away on international duty with Belgium, has enjoyed a superb beginning to life back in the Premier League following his club-record £54.5m move from Wolfsburg. 

De Bruyne, who spent an unsuccessful two-year spell with Chelsea between 2012 and 2014, has scored four goals in his first five matches for City, helping them to reach the Premier League summit after eight matches. 

He scored in Belgium's 4-1 European Qualifying victory over Andorra on Saturday, a win which clinched his country's place at next summer's finals in France. 

"I am on a good run at the moment and obviously I want to try to keep on scoring, but there will come a time when I will not score that often and that's not a problem for me as long as I put in the good performances, it is fine," he told Sky Sports News HQ. 

De Bruyne is likely to feature for Marc Wilmots' side in their final European Qualifier against Israel on Tuesday night as they aim to claim top spot in Group B ahead of Wales, who also secured qualification at the weekend. 

As well as featuring prominently for club and country, De Bruyne has been attempting to settle into life in Manchester. Despite the hectic start to the new season, De Bruyne says he is happy and feels his performances will improve even further once off the field matters have been sorted. 

"I am happy, my family is happy and that is the most important thing for me. In the end, there are a lot of things to do and I need to do. In the next month, when everything is settled and done, I will get more rest and maybe produce some better performances," he added. 

"Obviously it has been very busy, living at the hotel, sorting everything out for the house and all the other stuff that you need to do. That's the time you cannot take to have some rest, but obviously I am doing ok so it is fine."

Following Tuesday's match with Israel, De Bruyne will return to Manchester and team-up once again with Manuel Pellegrini's side ahead of Saturday's match with Bournemouth at the Etihad Stadium. 

The clash with the Cherries kicks off a busy week for City, with a Champions League home match with Sevilla and the Manchester derby against Manchester United at OId Trafford set to follow. 

City will be without striker Sergio Aguero, who suffered a grade two tear to his hamstring away on international duty with Argentina.

Aguero scored five times in his last match for City - a 6-1 thrashing of Newcastle - but is facing up to eight weeks on the sidelines after being carried off on a stretcher during the 2-0 defeat to Ecuador. 

De Bruyne, however, is hopeful City can deal with the loss of Aguero. 

He said: "He is one of the best strikers in the world and was obviously creating a lot of chances, scored five in the last game and now we are without him. We will try to put in good performances without him and he'll be happy when he gets back."

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