Kevin De Bruyne has admitted Manchester City have reached the “do or die” stage of the season with an historic Treble on the line.
De Bruyne's double in Wednesday's emphatic 4-1 win over Premier League leaders Arsenal has put City on course to retain the title and complete the first part of a potential Treble. Pep Guardiola's side are two points behind the Gunners with two games in hand and can go top of the table with victory at Fulham on Sunday.
City face Real Madrid in the semi-finals of the Champions League and local rivals Manchester United in the FA Cup final, whose 1999 Treble they are trying to emulate. De Bruyne knows there can be no margin for error if City are to scoop all three trophies and join United as the only side in English football history to do the Treble.
“We know it’s do or die every game,” said De Bruyne. "It’s going to be the same on Sunday, we have to win. We can’t win this one and then go to Fulham and not win.
“We’ve come close [to the Treble] in other years. We won all the trophies in England one year [2019], but we lost against Tottenham in the last minute in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, so things happen.
“It’s so hard to think about it anyway, as the schedule is so tough. We don’t even have the time to think about what can happen in two weeks, because in three days we play again and we need to be 100 per cent ready.
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“In some ways it’s good to have such a tight schedule, so you don’t have the opportunity to think about it. It’s fun and hard, but this is the way we like it."
City are on a 17-game unbeaten run in all competitions and have won their last seven in the league to take pole position in the title race, with Arsenal stumbling.
De Bruyne said: “I think we’ve been playing well for months, winning most of the games, and we’ve been defensively good recently. It’s great to be fighting for these things and we'll keep going until the end of the season."
