City and United have shown dominant all-round performances to establish themselves at the top but De Bruyne, who has provided five assists and scored once for City in the league so far, would take nothing for granted.
"For the moment I think so, but everybody's still there," De Bruyne told ESPN when asked if the Manchester clubs are favourites.
"It's so early, if you lose two or three games you go back to a (lower) position. We have to maintain this hopefully."
City manager Pep Guardiola led them to a third-placed league finish last season and De Bruyne believes that the club have improved their record against the league's top teams to rise to the top.
"I think last year we played good football but especially in the big games we didn't win them," De Bruyne added.
"Especially at the moment, we are playing maybe a little bit better, but we're just building on what we did last year and for the moment everything is going well. But we'll put hard work into it and we have to keep going."
City can extend their six-game winning streak when they host Burnley in the league on Saturday.
(Reporting by Aditi Prakash in Bengaluru; Editing by Amlan Chakraborty)
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