Manchester City star De Bruyne shrugs off price-tag pressure

Manchester City playmaker Kevin De Bruyne is in confident mood following his fine start to life at the Etihad Stadium, and says he is not at all fazed by the £54 million fee paid for his services this summer.

De Bruyne was the star of the Bundesliga for Wolfsburg last season, prompting City to fork out the second highest fee ever to be spent by a Premier League club.

The 24-year-old has hit the ground running in Manchester and was once again impressive as City beat Bournemouth 5-1 on Saturday, and appears far from weighed down by the money spent to acquire his signature.

Asked whether he feels any pressure, he replied with a smile: "Personally no. I'm not the only player here that they paid a lot of money for. So you don't think about it. In the end you just try to play your football."

De Bruyne suffered an ignominious exit from English football when he was sold by Chelsea midway through the 2013-14 season, and it had been suggested that he does not possess the sufficient mental strength to thrive in England.

But the playmaker is confident that he will continue to disprove his doubters: "It's very different to two or three years ago. Now I'm playing at a higher level and I will only improve over time. I'm very happy with the way things are going and I just want to try to keep it up."

De Bruyne picked up his third Premier League assist in two games on Saturday, when he slipped in Raheem Sterling for the second of his three first-half strikes against Bournemouth.

And the Belgian is just as confident about his young team-mate's prospects and believes he and the former Liverpool man are starting to develop a lethal understanding.

"He's really good, he's only 20 years old so there's a lot more to come," he added. "But he made the goals look easy today and that will only help his confidence.

"He likes to run deep and that makes it easier to find him, I'll try to play that ball. Sometimes it will work well, like today, and other times maybe he will not arrive. But if he makes runs like that it's good for me.

"If a player has pace like that it's always an advantage."