Kevin De Bruyne has described how a difficult few months has featured being “kicked in the face, kicked in the ankle” and then contracting Covid, though the midfielder hopes he is finding his best form after two goals in Manchester City’s 7-0 win over Leeds on Tuesday.
The face injury De Bruyne referenced occurred in May’s Champions League final defeat by Chelsea when he clashed with Antonio Rüdiger and the Belgian damaged ankle ligaments at Euro 2020. These problems hampered his pre-season and the 30-year-old contracted Covid in November.
De Bruyne said: “My rhythm is getting better. 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 could. With the schedule it is not that easy but I’m doing all right. I played in two games and came on as a sub in two so I’m doing what I need to do.
“I still feel sometimes that my body is adapting because I do two or three sprints and feel it, having had Covid.”
De Bruyne described how difficult the illness was. “I was pretty sick for four days,” he said. “I think it was like the 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 OK.
“I was 10 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 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.
“I watched Netflix, [did] 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.”
