I’ll keep playing my way and take the risks - KDB
BOTH Pep Guardiola and City fans will be delighted to hear that Kevin de Bruyne has no plans to change.
Speaking after his Premier League record-equalling 20th assist of the campaign, the 29-year-old tried to explain in his typically forthright way just what it is about his game that makes him so prolific.
“I try to play more risky than other players and try to create opportunities. I just try to do what’s in my mind,” he said.
“If it comes off it’s really well done but it doesn’t always work that way. This is how my style has been for 12 years of professional football. I don’t think it will change - maybe when I get older and can’t do the things I do any more. I just like to create opportunities, that’s it.”
De Bruyne appears to operate in a different portal completely, playing deliveries that nobody could even think possible and challenging the conventions of what someone should be able to do with a ball at their feet.
As he acknowledges, it doesn’t always pay off but with so many quality players at the Etihad it often does.
With Silva saying farewell to the club this summer after a majestic ten years, the style of the team should shift even more towards their Belgian enforcercum-schemer in midfield - but he cannot do it alone.
Riyad Mahrez injected a more direct threat to the attack when he joined from Leicester in 2018, while Phil Foden has developed that way with his sense of goal impressing Guardiola in recent months so much that he has been played as a forward rather than a midfielder.
Ferran Torres can also help. The Valencia winger that City are looking to sign is in the mould of Leroy Sane, a pacy, direct forward that will look to challenge defenders wherever he can.
Aymeric Laporte, Rodri, and Ilkay Gundogan can help keep a familiar tempo to the team but the swing from Silva to De Bruyne should see a City side next season that takes more risks in attack but has the potential for greater rewards.
It runs the risk of putting more pressure on the defence, but when it works it should make things easier for the back four.
And when De Bruyne is involved, the plan usually works.