Kevin De Bruyne has told Chelsea they must be 'almost perfect' in every remaining Premier League game as he warned his Manchester City teammates to be wary of Liverpool's threat in the title race.
De Bruyne scored the winner as City beat second-placed Chelsea to move 13 points clear of Thomas Tuchel's side with just 16 games remaining. The result has seen many rule Chelsea out of the title race, but Liverpool now have two games in hand on City to potentially reduce the gap to just eight points.
Speaking after the game, De Bruyne admitted that going 13 points clear of Chelsea was a key motivation for City, who are now looking more to Liverpool as a title rival than Tuchel's men.
He told BT Sport: "It's a big game, they came here, had a very good plan, very tight defensively but we played a pretty good game. It's nice to score the goal. It's important because it's the only one but the team played very well today.
"We knew if we win today we make the gap bigger on them. We don't have to look at that, we've been in this situation before with points ahead. The second year we were the same points behind. A lot of things can change and momentum can swing quickly. The team was focussed on the things we can do and that's the only things we can do.
"It's very hard [for Chelsea to catch City]. Obviously, they need to be almost perfect, there's another team dangling there. keep the momentum, doing what we need to do and try to win each game."
He added to BBC Sport: "We've been in a situation where we've been eight or ten points ahead but also eight or ten points behind. We know it can change very quickly. We know the gap is big at the moment, but we know Liverpool aren't far behind if they win their games."
Regarding the game, and his fine goal that saw him brush off a challenge from N'Golo Kante and bend a lovely effort into the bottom corner, De Bruyne said City got their rewards for being patient and compact.
"I got away from him at the right time, I was looking where the spaces are but they were dropping off, dropping off," De Bruyne explained in his BT interview.
"I found an angle and it worked perfectly.
"It's always very difficult to play against them, they are very tight defensively, you have to be very patient. We played the game we needed to play, we shouldn't play too open because they smell dangers. We did what we have to do.
"[In the second half] the game was more open, they can be very dangerous, you saw it was a very hard game, lots of people coming back from covid on both sides with not many training sessions. Obviously it's nice from us."
