Manchester City's condition has improved in the last two matches and they have started to find a positive trend after experiencing bad times.
Pep Guardiola is trying to restore the motivation of the players after experiencing a difficult time and they are starting to find a much better direction of play.
There are still many opportunities for Manchester City to pursue the top three positions because there are still many matches left and the priority going forward is to add depth to the squad so that Manchester City's strength becomes better.
Manchester City are strong and have enough star players to compete with other clubs for top four, and I believe that they will appear in top four very soon. Inconsistency of other clubs like Arsenal, Chelsea, Newcastle United and inexperience of Nottingham Forest are great opportunities for Manchester City to jump in top four of Premier League. They only need time to improve their performances stably and wait for bad results from above clubs in coming match days.
De Bruyne is not performing at his best and maybe his glory days are starting to fade due to age.
There was rumor months ago that there was a conflict between Pep Guardiola and De Bruyne and the coach did not want to use this player.
Pep Guardiola will be a little more busy looking for some additional players and maybe he needs at least 4 new players because relying on existing players until the end of the season will make them lose the chance to compete for the top three in the standings.
4 new players are too much for a winter transfer season and I think they won't buy 4 new players, but chance to get like 2 players from loan contract is possible, and maybe 1 or 2 players will be bought in this transfer season.