The City boss watched the Belgian score the goal that gave the Blues a 2-1 win over Sevilla, then admitted the former Wolfsburg man had given a new dimension to his team’ attack.
“We bought Kevin because we knew is a very creative player who can score and create goals and in that respect he was the perfect player to bring to our club,” he said.
“It was a very close game and it was very difficult to create chances. It was important to go into the break level and I think in the second half it was very hard for either side to create any clear-cut opportunities, but we kept going and in the last ten minutes we had made more chances to win the game and eventually scored again.
“We tried to make some changes which is why we put Kevin up front with Yaya and fortunately, between them, the created the second goal. It is important that we won this game with the derby to come on Sunday – we need to continue improving in what we are doing.
“We’ve now won the last two Champions League games with late goals after going behind and showed great character and concentration which is very important in Europe.
“We will now forget about the Champions League and start to think about the weekend. It’s important that we recover properly and try to continue winning games.”
Pellegrini also revealed why he spoke to Yaya Toure and Vincent Kompany as De Bruyne made way for his national team skipper after the winning goal.
“The confusion was that Yaya was not the substitute!” he smiled. “Nothing more. Nicolas Otamendi and Eliaquim Mangala have been playing well and were in the side that beat Newcastle 6-1 and Bournemouth 5-1 so they deserved to continue.
“Vincent is just coming back from a month out with injury and that’s why he started as a substitute.”
