Manchester City go back to winning ways with a stunning performance against Ipswich, with academy graduate Phil Foden continuing to shine despite a slow start to the campaign
Kevin De Bruyne believes Phil Foden will follow Erling Haaland into the Ten More Years club at Manchester City.
Foden has already been at City for 20 years after being scouted aged four, and manager Pep Guardiola hopes he will become a one-club legend by staying at the Etihad for his whole career. After the England midfielder took his purple patch to six goals in as many Premier League games, De Bruyne warned City’s top-four rivals: “He’s getting back to what he’s good at.”
And Foden’s return to form, after a sluggish first half of the season with no league goals until December 21, is the clearest sign yet that City’s pre-Christmas crisis is over and the Blue Moon is rising again. Goal machine Haaland’s monster nine-and-a-half year contract worth £260million was a huge statement of intent – and now all eyes are on City’s other big-hitters to see if they will follow suit.
De Bruyne said: “I think Phil will always score goals. He’s that kind of player who’s really good around the box and he knows when to come into it. Obviously we all had a tough period for a certain time, but he’s scored a lot of goals lately, so he’s getting back to what he’s good at and that’s important for us.”
Will Foden answer Guardiola’s prayers and become a one-club player? “I cannot decide for him,” said De Bruyne, who is approaching 10 years on the City payroll and has won 14 major trophies with the club including six titles.
“Everybody’s different, and he’s already been here so long, but to play at a top club like this makes it easier to stay. With all due respect, I come from Belgium and I wanted to go higher. I had to change my top, so for him it’s probably easier to stay if you can play for a top team and have good players all around you.
“But you never know – maybe in four or five years he wants to make a change or have something different. That happens in life. But I think there’s a possibility (that he will stay).”
De Bruyne’s return to full fitness after two months out in the autumn will be the impetus for him to open contract talks after entering the last six months of his existing deal without discussing an extension with the club.
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He doesn’t expect to be offered terms on a par with Haaland and joked: “I don’t think wherever I go I’ll get the 10-year contract anyway, so I don’t need to press for one!”
But City will go to Paris Saint-Germain for a vital under-achievers’ duel in the Champions League Wednesday night fortified by their return to form and catching the wave of a six-goal hammering of Ipswich.
De Bruyne said: “I think we suffered a lot with different circumstances. I think a lot of players play again in the position where they’re used to, and that helps. We know that a lot of things happened and we were not at the best level, so we have to take it.
“I’ve not spoken to the club (about a new contract) for the moment. I want it to get better, I’m doing better, so for now I’m heading to Paris and something will happen.
“Sometimes you make decisions based on the circumstances, or if you get an injury, especially in the troubled year I was injured for two or three months but I took the decision to play on. I don’t regret that decision. Obviously I was out for six months with a hamstring, but that’s life. You pick yourself up and go further.”
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