Kevin De Bruyne felt his partnership with Erling Haaland proved so fruitful against Arsenal because they were able to exploit their man-marking strategy and run at the defence.
Both men got on the scoresheet in the 4-1 win against the Gunners that put City in control of the title race, with Haaland twice setting goals up for De Bruyne, who also created John Stones' goal on the stroke of half-time.
The combination play between De Bruyne, in an advanced role, and Haaland caused Arsenal problems all night. The striker was a terrifying force of nature when running at Rob Holding or Gabriel, but he also unleashed De Bruyne at times with clever passes.
READ MORE: Guardiola is already achieving his City aim with Haaland
Haaland held up a long pass from Stones before playing De Bruyne in for the first goal and then also slid his partner in for City's third, beginning to repay some of the assists that have come his way for his 49 goals this season.
The record-breaking striker was certainly more involved in the build-up play against Arsenal, but De Bruyne believes the state of the game allowed the two to wreak such havoc.
“He’s been involved before – it just depends who you are playing against," he said. "There is more space in behind with Arsenal as they go to man to man.
"That meant there were more opportunities for me to run into the space and get the ball. I think we created enough chances. I think last night there was a little bit more space, the way Arsenal pressed."
De Bruyne was described as "unstoppable" by Pep Guardiola after his performance against Arsenal, but the unflappable Belgian isn't getting carried away.
"I don’t know – I just try to play the best football I can," he responded. "It was fine, picking the right moments to go in behind and I think we really hurt them in that first half on occasions. We could have scored more."
City's win means the title is now in their hands and they are potentially 11 games away from winning the treble, with an FA Cup final to come against Manchester United and a Champions League semi-final against Real Madrid.
The Blues have never been this close to winning all three competitions, but De Bruyne said the relentless schedule means the squad are finding little time to think too far ahead in what could turn out to be a golden end to the season.
"It’s hard to say [if we're closer than ever to it], we’ve come close in other years. We won all the cups in England one year but we lost against Tottenham in the last minute in the quarters of the Champions League, things happen," he said.
"It’s so hard to think about it anyway as the schedule is so tough. We don’t even have the time to think about what can happen in two weeks – because in three days we play again and we need to be 100% ready.
"In some ways it’s good to have such a tight schedule so you don’t have the opportunity to think about it. It’s fun and hard but this is the way we like it.
"I think we’ve been playing well for months, winning most of the games. We’ve been defensively good recently but we know it’s do or die every game. It’s going to be the same on Sunday, we have to win. We can’t win this one and then go to Fulham and not win."
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