The Blues were quick out of the blocks with three goals in the opening 18 minutes killing off their south coast opponents before Aleksandar Kolarov’s injury time strike sealed the three points.
City rarely looked like surrendering their lead after the lightning quick start and De Bruyne was delighted with the manner of victory.
He said: “It’s nice to come back this way. It makes it a little easier if you are 3-0 ahead after 20 minutes. In the first half an hour especially we played very well and created a lot of chances.
“We could maybe even have scored a fourth one but I think in the second half we controlled the game and it was a nice ending for us.”
City had failed to score in the two Premier League matches before the international break but De Bruyne insists he knew their luck would change in front of goal.
He added: “Obviously, we didn’t score a lot of goals in the last few games. This can happen but as long as you create chances you will score goals.
“The goals that we scored were nice attacking goals. They will look at the other side but I think the way we created so many chances was very good. The first half especially was very good.”
The Belgian was making his return from a knee injury which has kept him sidelined for nearly three months and it proved to be a successful comeback as he doubled City’s lead with a sweet volley in the 11th minute before being substituted in the 55th minute.
He said: “You never know what is going to happen with the first few games back.
“I’m happy with the way everything went and physically everything was okay. I’m happy I could play almost an hour and I hope I can go on like this.”
Finally, De Bruyne refused to get carried away ahead of the Champions League trip to Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday.
He said: “This gives us a boost but PSG is another game in another cup and hopefully we can do well. It’s going to be hard but we’ll do everything we can to win that game.”
