Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has told Kevin De Bruyne to be "completely honest with himself" when deciding his future.
De Bruyne is out of contract at the end of the season and has been linked with a move away from the Etihad. The midfielder also admitted last summer that he would consider a move to Saudi Arabia, telling Belgian outlet HLN : "At my age you have to be open to everything. You're talking about incredible amounts of money in what may be the end of my career.
“Sometimes you have to think about that. If I play there [Saudi Arabia] for two years, I will be able to earn an incredible amount of money. Before that I had to play football for 15 years. I may not even reach that amount yet. Then you have to think about what that could mean next. But at the moment I haven't had to think about that yet."
De Bruyne has struggled with injury problems in recent years and he has been limited to just 11 Premier League starts so far this season. And when asked about the future of his captain, Guardiola said: "I think in that situation he has to decide, that is the most important thing.
"He's completely honest with himself, to decide what he feels and what he can do in the next period of his life. He's 34 in the summer and he has to decide, like what happened with David Silva for example."
David Silva was also 34 when he left City on a free transfer back in 2020, with the midfielder returning to Spain with Real Sociedad. Silva spent three seasons at Sociedad before retiring in 2023 after suffering an ACL injury.
De Bruyne, meanwhile, admitted back in November he has "no idea how long" he has left playing at the highest level. "Honestly, I don't know," he said when asked if this season would be his final one at City.
"Obviously when I started the season I knew things would happen and talks would happen. But then I unfortunately had that thing [problem] against Brentford [in September]. So I've put basically everything [about my future] to the side. I was hoping to be out for a couple of days and it ended up being eight or nine weeks.
"So for the moment I'd rather get better first and see how I am and the rest will come. I'm not really too obsessed with things right now. There's not been a lot of talks. I just want to play good football again. Talks will come. If no talks come, then it's my last year, so I don't know.
"As long as I feel that [I can make a difference to the team], that's a good indicator that I can still play at the top level. So that's for me the only assurance that I need. But I have no idea how long that’s going to stay [the case]."