De Bruyne reveals Man City spent TEN minutes training on tactics for Man derby

Pep Guardiola's side were in cruise control throughout the Manchester derby, with United barely able to lay a finger on the reigning Premier League champions during the contest.

Source: The Guardian, Kevin De Bruyne during a match

However, there was some uncertainty on the Spaniard's behalf before the contest, as he was unsure as to whether United would go with a back four or five.

United played a back five in their 3-0 victory against Tottenham but went to a back four mid-way through their 2-2 draw with Atalanta in the Champions League, after Raphael Varane picked up an injury.

Source: The Mirror, Kevin De Bruyne and Fred 

De Bruyne has added salt to United's wound as he told Dutch podcast Mid Mid: 'The day before a game we usually train tactically, based on how the opponent plays.

'Before United, Pep said: 'We don't know how they are going to play. We shall see'. And we stopped training after 10 minutes or so.

'Often Pep knows how the opponent is going to play. This time he didn't know, so he didn't know what to do.

'We have done what we always do, but he didn't know beforehand if they would play with five at the back, with four, a diamond in the middle, or with three up front.'

In the end United played with a back five with three central defenders in Harry Maguire, Victor Lindelof and Eric Bailly with Luke Shaw and Aaron Wan-Bissaka.

The Red Devils first resorted to the system in the aftermath of their humiliating 5-0 defeat to rivals Liverpool at Anfield.

Bailly's own goal and a defensive mix-up for Bernardo Silva's close-range effort allowed Pep Guardiola's side to walk away with the three points.

This isn't the first time De Bruyne has revealed that City needed to do little work on the training ground ahead of a victory at Old Trafford.

City beat United 3-1 in a Carabao Cup semi-final first-leg back in January 2020.

Asked after the game how much tactical work had gone into their preparations, De Bruyne said: 'We did 15 minutes this morning. That's about it.

'But it's not like we never did it before so we did already a sometimes against teams who prefer to play man against man – Cardiff, United, I think Barcelona the way we did it the first year. So we've done it a couple of times.'