Kevin De Bruyne fires warning to Man City title rivals after Bournemouth rout

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Kevin De Bruyne fires warning to Man City title rivals after Bournemouth rout

Kevin De Bruyne believes Manchester City can still get better despite routing Bournemouth 4-0 to make it successive victories to open their Premier League title defence.

The Belgian doubled City's lead with a sumptous outside-of-the-boot finish, adding to Ilkay Gundogan's opener for the hosts. De Bruyne then turned provider for Phil Foden, before a Jefferson Lerma own goal rounded off the scoring.

And the Belgian, who is one of the favourites to win the 2022 Ballon d'Or, reckons his side can go up another gear despite making it 11 consecutive victories against the Cherries in the Premier League.

"Obviously the circumstances are hard, it's so hot, the pitch wasn’t great which makes it all the more difficult," De Bruyne said. "But leading 3-0 fairly quickly in the half makes it easy and even in the second half they were defending so deep.

"We didn’t give too much away but I think we can still go up a level."

De Bruyne added another finish to his growing highlight reel of goals for the Cityzens, taking matters into his own hands as the Bournemouth defence retreated.

"He [Lloyd Kelly] was backing off and he was closing more the outside so I saw the little gap, tried it and it went in," the midfielder added. "When I was young I tried everything and I got told off a lot of times.

"It’s important to do inside and outside with both feet because it can help and today it did help."