Kev happy to be crowned assists king...
KEVIN de Bruyne admits he gets a bigger kick from setting up a goal than scoring one himself!
The Belgium ace earned the nickname King of the Assists when he set a new Bundesliga record with 23 during his Wolfsburg days, before being snapped up by City.
But in his first season with the Blues he scored ten and assisted nine goals in the Premier League and Champions League.
Pep Guardiola switched him to a deeper role last season and – while his goalscoring tally dropped to seven – he boosted his assist figure to an amazing 19, and has already claimed three during this campaign.
De Bruyne also hit the woodwork an astonishing nine times last season, so he was close to having an incredible campaign in terms of his personal statistics.
But he claims that setting up a team-mate often gives him an even bigger thrill than hitting the net himself.
“I get more joy from an assist sometimes, just in the way I feel,” he said after masterminding City’s 4-0 win at Feyenoord, and teeing up John Stones for the fourth.
“It’s nice to score a goal but I don’t get in that type of position too many times, as I did in the first year. But it doesn’t matter.
“I am enjoying my football and the goals will come. As long as we win I don’t care.”
De Bruyne was literally inches away from scoring well into double figures last season, and the look on his face as shots peppered the frame of the goal got more and more incredulous as the season wore on.
But he says the only one that still irks him was when he glanced a shot off the bar from ten yards out, with City leading 1-0 against Chelsea. It was a golden chance, and a costly miss as the Kevin de Bruyne Londoners hit back to win 3-1 and take control of the league title race. De Bruyne says that moment is the only woodwork hit that still bothers him. “It’s frustrating at the moment you hit the post, but last year the only one that hit the woodwork that I regret was the one against Chelsea where I hit the bar.” And he said that he is relishing the chance to play deeper and leave the frontline attacking to the pace and sharpness of players like Gabriel Jesus, Leroy Sane, Sergio Aguero and Raheem Sterling. “The guys who come in are so talented one against one with speed, and ability to dribble, and I’m more of a passing player,” he said. “I have learned so much from David Silva and Fernandinho in the middle, and from Yaya Toure. “I am getting better in that way.”