Wolverhampton, England, May 12 (BNA): Manchester City’s genius midfielder Kevin De Bruyne scored four goals in the 5-1 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers to put his team in a leading position to retain the Premier League with two matches remaining.
The Belgian put the match to bed with a hat-trick in a devastating 18 minutes in the first half, before scoring a fourth after the break as guest fans took turns chanting ‘Kevin De Bruyne’ and ‘Champions of England’. Reuters reports.
The win leaves Pep Guardiola’s side in the lead with 89 points, three ahead of Liverpool who also lead on goal difference, with the title now firmly in their sights.
Winning the Premier League title for the second time in a row will ease the disappointment of their exit from the Champions League, after City fell in the semi-finals and Liverpool reached the final.
At Molino, De Bruyne scored the third oldest hat-trick in Premier League history and his first hat-trick with Manchester City.
For the first goal, he started the move before running into the return pass to Bernardo Silva to score a superb goal in the seventh minute. De Bruyne hit a rebound for the second time in the 16th minute, before using his alleged weaker left foot to get a great curler from the edge of the penalty area on 24.
“The third goal was my favourite,” he said. “I think the kick is the cleanest. I hit it hard in the corner. Of the three, this was the cleanest.”
“When you score four goals, it’s always something special. To be honest, it should have been five!” He added, expressing his regret that a late strike hit the post.
‘Unstoppable, perfect’
No stranger to irritating the Premier League’s top players, Wolves briefly threatened when Leander Dendoncker made it 1-1 after a flowing break, before De Bruyne stole the show.
He scored the fourth goal from close range in the 60th minute, before his teammate Raheem Sterling completed another easy victory for City with his goal in the 84th minute.
Guardiola was purring at his midfielder, praising him for both his assists and scoring many goals for Manchester City in recent years. Unstoppable, he said, “wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, perfect.”
And Manchester City plays away from home with West Ham and then Aston Villa at home in their remaining two matches in the English Premier League, with one victory and a draw that guarantees the title.
Liverpool plays the FA Cup final against Chelsea on Saturday, before facing Southampton away from home and Wolves at home in the last two league matches.
The defeat left Wolves in eighth place with 50 points.
“When you have players like De Bruyne, who can always change the game, you can have a strategy, but when it comes to players like that, they can score four goals and finish the game,” said Wolves first team coach Carlos Cachada.
“With this performance we can’t do anything about it.”