Kevin de Bruyne says it would be “disrespectful” to regard Tottenham as a weaker threat to Manchester City's Quadruple dream, just because Harry Kane is crocked.
Reigning domestic champions City , second in the table, into the FA Cup Final and with the Carabao Cup already retained, bid to overturn their Champions League quarter-final first leg 1-0 deficit at the Etihad on Wednesday night.
And De Bruyne fears Spurs will be just as tough to crack without the England captain, who is out for the season with ankle ligament damage suffered during that meeting in the Londoners' shiny new lair.
He said: “Harry Kane is a wonderful striker, but it would be disrespectful to the other guys. They won against us without him when he went off last week and they have brilliant players [Kane-less Tottenham hammered Huddersfield 4-0 at the weekend, with Lucas Moura scoring a hat-trick].
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“Earlier they won so many games without him before and they are still a very good team without him. Obviously he's a really good player, but it's not going to change anything.
“It will be a great game — a good atmosphere and, hopefully, a good game.
“For us, it's all or nothing.”
The winners of the quarter-final will meet Juventus or Ajax in the semis, with that tie level at 1-1 after the first leg in Amsterdam.
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City entertain Tottenham again three days later for the latest instalment of the title run-in. Any dropped points in Saturday's lunchtime game could help hand the crown to Liverpool , who currently lead by a point and visit relegation favourites Cardiff the following day.
De Bruyne insisted: “If we don't win the Premier League, people are going to say it's a failure. Even if we don't make it, I think we'll still have had a great season.
“We'll probably have to win every game to win the title from here, and we can only control what we're doing, but we're still there and doing really well.”
