Kevin De Bruyne tells Man City one thing they must do differently to beat Real Madrid this season

Kevin De Bruyne has said Manchester City must minimise their mistakes if they’re to beat Real Madrid in this season’s Champions League semi-final.

The Blues came unstuck against Real last year as they crashed out of the competition at the last-four stage. Two late goals in the second leg at the Bernabeu forced extra-time, with Real going on to net a third that saw Los Blancos progress to the final and eliminate Pep Guardiola’s men.

But after City set up a second consecutive semi-final meeting with Real thanks to a 4-1 aggregate win over Bayern Munich, De Bruyne claimed the team must reduce the number of errors they concede in order to beat Carlo Ancelotti’s side this time around.

“One of the best teams,” the Belgian said, when asked about Real. “A lot of respect for them - top, top team and players. We’ve played a lot of times against them and they’ve always been good games.

“I wouldn’t expect anything less. We’ll need to be at our best to beat them. Last year, we played really well, made some mistakes but this year we will try to minimise the mistakes. I’ve got confidence in our team. We go again and hopefully the outcome will be ours this time.”

City’s progression to the Champions League semi-finals means the Blues’ hopes of completing a treble are still on, with the Premier League title race back in their hands and an FA Cup last-four clash with Sheffield United on Saturday. And De Bruyne claimed City are capable of winning all three trophies in the final weeks of the campaign.

“Everything is doable, but it doesn’t mean it makes it any easier,” he said. “It’s a privilege to play in all these competitions. We can’t look at Arsenal [yet]. We’ve got another semi-final [coming up] against Sheffield and I want to win. We need to rest now and prepare ourselves.

“I’ve only won the FA Cup once and I want to win it again,” he added. “We have other priorities on Saturday and then we can concentrate on next week. Obviously, we’re going to try and win everything - it’s hard but it’s a privilege to be able to fight for everything.”