Despite his injuries, Kevin De Bruyne has remained a vital member of the Man City team, and Pep Guardiola has hailed his leadership.

After revealing that Kevin De Bruyne is healing nicely from surgery to address a hamstring issue, Pep Guardiola raised the possibility that the midfield player will make an early comeback for Manchester City.

After undergoing surgery, the Belgian was predicted to miss four months after aggravating the injury in the first weekend of the Premier League season at Turf Moor.

The 32-year-old is still a frequent presence at the Etihad Campus, according to Guardiola, but he may return sooner as he continues to concentrate on his recovery. De Bruyne is a member of City’s leadership group. Despite reporting to the rest of the squad for treatment at different times, he has remained in the locker room and continues to have regular conversations with Guardiola.

“[He] arrives at different times, either prior to or following the training necessary for his treatment. Guardiola stated, “Our backroom staff and physios need to pay attention to the guys who are going to train at training.”

“I see him every day, he is getting better, his mood is good, hopefully sooner than we expect he will come back.”

With 24 goals in 11 games this season, City has topped both their Champions League group and the Premier League standings, so they haven’t missed De Bruyne all that much.

Despite changes to the tactical lineup since 2016, Guardiola has praised City’s ability to score goals since he joined the team. Julian Alvarez and Phil Foden have both expertly filled in for De Bruyne at times.

“We’ve scored a ton of goals since I’ve been here. We had a lot of goals, and we continued that tendency. We have this ability with appropriate strikers, with a false nine, with wingers coming inside, wingers left to right, and right to left, different pressing, and different build-ups,” the man stated.