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MANCHESTER. — As Manchester City’s season continues through what may politely be described as a period of uncertainty, Kevin de Bruyne’s stock continues to rise. Not long before we met on Monday, De Bruyne learned he had been nominated for the Ballon d’Or and the stats show the Belgian has created more chances — 24 — than any other player in the English Premier League this soccer season.It is less than 14 months ago that the 25-year-old arrived back in England from German club Wolfsburg with many people asking just how a player sold by Chelsea for £18 million in January 2014 could be worth £55 million a year-and-a-half later. With justification, De Bruyne believes he has answered that question.

“Obviously it is very satisfying,” De Bruyne told Sportsmail. “I come here today with a very different view than people had of me last year. It shows that a lot can happen in one year. “Everybody had a view of how I came out of Chelsea so, yeah, it gives me satisfaction that people have changed their minds.”

If De Bruyne’s eminent place in English football is assured, his team have some way to go. A sprinter’s start this season has been slowed by setbacks and Sunday’s 1-1 draw at home to Southampton stretched a winless streak to five games.

There were even some boos at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday. Some were for the referee, but some were for the players, too.

It seems extreme, but a 50-minute post-match dressing-room address by Pep Guardiola only added to the feeling that something needs to be fixed ahead of tonight’s EFL Cup derby at Manchester United.

“He just told us to believe,” revealed De Bruyne. “He doesn’t want us to have doubts in the way that we are playing. “He wanted to make sure that we know the way we are playing now is the good way. That was the message. There are a lot of risks in how we play, we know that.

“I know this is not a very patient world, but we are trying something very new. There will be ups and downs. Other teams will adapt to us, but everything will be OK in the end. We know we have to learn everything perfectly for this to work.”

There, in a nutshell, is the essence of the City debate. If something needs to work perfectly for it to work at all, does that automatically render it a risk not worth taking? De Bruyne has no doubt. City won the first 10 games of this season and that golden spell was enough to convince him of the merits of Guardiola’s vision.

“It felt so very good to be in the team at that point,” he recalled. “The way we play is the way every team want to play, but not a lot of teams can play that amazing way.

“It’s not as easy as it looked. There is hard work involved and maybe many people wouldn’t like that. But, for the best teams in the world who can do that without losing too many points, then it’s just great.”

Guardiola has said there will be no change in the philosophy, despite the glitches in the system. De Bruyne points out that the current schedule of games is limiting the training time needed to oil the machine so it could be that the cracks will remain.

“We are playing all the time so we don’t really have real sessions and that’s hard,” he said. “The goals that we have conceded have been more like mistakes from us, rather than us being blown apart. So if we can minimise them it will be better for us, we know that.

“If the manager changed (his style) now people will ask why. So he can’t really win. Anyway, why should he change his ways just because he has come to England? This is his belief and he thinks it’s right.

“He has achieved so many things playing this way, so I can understand why he continues. We said it before the season. If we lose, the criticism is going to be way worse than it was before. But apart from Southampton and losing at Spurs, the other games were good.

“There are always new challenges in football. You just need to adapt otherwise you won’t fit in. And if you don’t fit in then you will have to go somewhere else.”— Mailonline.