The Belgian midfielder believes losing to Man United is a good thing.
Man City ended their 21-game winning streak and 28-match unbeaten run when they lost 2-0 in the Manchester derby.
The Cityzens still are 11 points clear of the Red Devils and have only 10 games left to play.
Kevin De Bruyne believes a loss in the Manchester derby will only help their pursuit of glory this season.
“Obviously it’s not nice to lose the derby,” said De Bruyne.
“But sometimes it’s necessary to have hard games and even lose games.
“You learn a lot about these moments and now we have to recover and work hard again to be ready for Wednesday.
“The gap is there but we have to focus on Southampton. It doesn’t matter how big the gap is, as we want to win the next game.
“That’s on Wednesday against Southampton and we have to be ready for it.
“We play game by game, we don’t think about the winning streak or what’s going to happen in four or five matches ahead.
“We need to pick ourselves up, because we have another important match on Wednesday. We’re going to try to do our job and win again.”
See More: Manchester City predicted line up vs Southampton: Starting XI for today!