Guardiola hails De Bruyne as ‘one of the three to five best players in the history’ of Manchester City | OneFootball

Manchester City came from behind to beat Plymouth Argyle 3-1 in the fifth round of the FA Cup, with Kevin De Bruyne registering a goal and an assist.

The Belgian has struggled for much of this season, but no player has more goals or assists in the last 10 years of the FA Cup than De Bruyne.

Guardiola was full of praise for the 33-year-old: “He has been maybe one of the three to five best players in the history of this club, that’s without a doubt. The amount of things he has done, with the ball, assists and goals.

“Every time he performs well I am the happiest man on this planet because he has given me many, many things. To the team and to me. He played really, really good today.”

The other standout player today was Nico O’Reilly. The youngster, a midfielder by trade, was asked to fill in at left-back today, and resumed the goalscoring role of Josko Gvardiol, something Guardiola could see the funny side of.

“You are right, looks like our left-backs score the goals! He’s (O’Reilly) a different type of academy player because a lot of ours are so small and this guy is big and can play in three or four different positions. I’m really pleased for him and he helped us a lot.”

City are now in the quarter-finals of the competition, and their manager was keen to reinforce how seriously he takes the FA Cup. “How many times have we been in the semi-finals of the FA Cup in the last five or six years? That tells you how important it is to us.

“No team has been in the semi-final five or six times in a row. Now we are going to fight, tomorrow we will see the draw and we will see what happens.”