Manchester City midfielder Kevin De Bruyne has said that he is confident his side are heading in the right direction following their impressive 4-1 win over Real Madrid in pre-season.
Goals from Nicolas Otamendi, Raheem Sterling, John Stones and Brahim Diaz saw City sweep the European champions aside in Los Angeles as they continued their preparations for the new campaign.
Manager Pep Guardiola has spent more than £200m in a bid to improve his squad this summer following a trophyless debut season at the helm, and De Bruyne believes that the club have done good business.
"It's how the market goes. There's a lot of money [going out], but there's a lot of money going in. Who can say that spending £200m is normal? It isn't. But how the league and football is going at the moment, its normal prices. Obviously it's a lot of money, but it's things that we needed to do. The revenue that the club gets in will be more than the £200m," he told reporters.
"When you play 60-65 games a season and still have national team, everybody needs to be fresh. We had a few problems last year in that side with a little bit of injury so I think now we can cope with that. We lost five or six players, especially in defence, so we had to buy in some players and I think the acquisitions are really good.
"I think we're on the right way. Obviously this game doesn't say a lot, but it says that we're moving in the right direction. Hopefully we can have a good performance against Tottenham (in Nashville on Saturday) and then we will work hard in Manchester to be ready for August 12."
City begin the new Premier League season away to Brighton & Hove Albion.
Barney Corkhill
