CARABAO CUP: Guardiola delighted to see ‘cranky’ De Bruyne return to his best 

Man City manger Pep Guardiola was delighted to see “grumpy” Kevin De Bruyne back to his peerless best in Manchester City’s thrilling Carabao Cup fourth-round win over Liverpool Thursday night.

The City manager, though, was seemingly less impressed with Kalvin Phillips, who was surprisingly left out of the squad. Guardiola revealed that the England midfielder had “not arrived in the best condition to train” after returning from the World Cup in Qatar having made two substitute appearances against Wales and Senegal that totalled 40 minutes.

Even without Phillips, City earned a place in the quarter-finals, and a tie away to Southampton, thanks to the Belgium playmaker, who put behind him a disappointing World Cup with a masterclass that inspired City to victory and set up another goal for Erling Haaland.

De Bruyne hit superb crosses to create Haaland’s opener after ten minutes and the match-winner, headed home by Nathan Aké 13 minutes after half-time when the score was 2-2.

Guardiola said he believed De Bruyne needed to channel his inner fire to reach the peak of his powers. “He was brilliant today, outstanding. Kevin has been here eight years and you know him as well as me.

 “Sometimes he just needs to find the right fire inside himself — he has to be a little bit, I want to say ‘grumpy’ or upset — to play his best.

“He has to go there to get energy inside himself and when that happens, what a player — assists, scoring goals — he’s another player.

“I know it’s not easy to find this consistency every three days but in important games he has something inside that says, ‘OK, I’m going to do it.’ When this happens, he is Kevin De Bruyne.

“What can I say? In eight years he has done everything for this club, he is legend. He will be remembered for ever as one of the greatest players of all time for this club.”

Guardiola was also pleased with Haaland opening the “new” season with a goal, taking his tally to an astonishing 24 for the season.

And the City manager was especially happy given that the Norway striker, whose country failed to qualify for the World Cup finals, struggled with injury during the six-week break.

“Erling is not like Rico Lewis or Raheem Sterling in the past,” Guardiola said. “After one training session he is not fit and ready. He is so tall and big, to move this body is not easy. In Abu Dhabi, we were there for six days and he trained one day, he was still injured from before.

“He is an incredible professional, how he takes care of his body. He scored an incredible goal and helped us a lot. After 75 minutes, he was exhausted but he will be ready for Leeds next week.”

Jürgen Klopp, the Liverpool manager, was impressed by large parts of his team’s performance, and their two goals. “There is a lot to take from it, not the result, but in between we played probably the best team in the world, it is unbelievable how they are, and it is normal you struggle in moments,” he said.

“We will not play every three days against Man City but we can do better.”