Manchester City head coach Pep Guardiola has heaped praise on captain Kevin De Bruyne, calling him a legend following his match-winning cameo against Newcastle United in the Premier League.

De Bruyne was the star of the show for Manchester City as they came from behind to beat Newcastle United 3-2 in the Premier League.

The Belgian, who has been out since August because of a hamstring injury, came on in the 69^th minute with City trailing 1-2 against the Magpies. He scored a through a clinical outside-the-box strike in the 74^th minute before picking an inch-perfect pass to find Oscar Bobb, who scored in injury-time to grab the win for the defending champions.

Speaking after their win, Guardiola called De Bruyne a legend, adding that they need players like him to do something special in the final third. De Bruyne has now gone level with Wayne Rooney to became the third-highest assist-maker in Premier League history.

“Kevin is a legend. He is loved by our people and, hopefully, in the last months he can help us be there to the end. We need players like Kevin. We need him to do something special in the final third. That is not tactical ability but talent, individual talent,” said Guardiola.

Meanwhile, Newcastle United head coach Eddie Howe they were hoping for De Bruyne to be rusty but he wasn’t. With this result, Newcastle’s succumbed to their fourth successive defeat which leaves them 10th in the league standings.

“We wanted him to be rusty and he wasn’t. We wanted to minimise the space for him and for the majority of the time he was on we dealt with it really well. With three minutes to see out we thought we were almost there,” said Howe.

Following this win, Manchester City moved up to the second spot in the league table, with 43 points from 20 matches .

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