De Bruyne display shows he’s on way back to his best
PROBABLY for the first time since he joined the club in 2015, Kevin De Bruyne’s place in the City starting line-up was a topic of debate ahead of Saturday’s derby.
De Bruyne, so often magnificent in a sky blue shirt, has not been in the best of form following a summer and pre-season decimated by injury.
After fairly patchy performances against West Ham and Crystal Palace in the ten days preceding the trip to Old Trafford, few City fans would have been outraged had Pep Guardiola opted to leave his Belgian creator on the bench.
However, this is De Bruyne we’re talking about. Ever the player for the big occasion, City’s number 17 put in a typically dynamic yet technical display as City smothered their cross-town rivals in a 2-0 win.
De Bruyne has long been regarded as perhaps the best creative player in the Premier League - you don’t make 33 direct goal contributions in 35 appearances (13 goals and 20 assists in 2019/20) by accident.
Against United on Saturday, De Bruyne showed that after a tough few months, he is finally approaching the peak of his powers once more.
On an afternoon where City toyed with United to the extent that they stopped trying to score despite only being 2-0 up, De Bruyne was at his creative best.
The Belgian midfielder created four chances over the 90 minutes more than the entire United team combined.
Of course, context is important here; United hardly had the ball they had only 32% of the possession - so they were never going to create as many chances as City. But the fact that De Bruyne also created more than any of his City teammates showed that he is
becoming an important part of Guardiola’s side once more.
So far this season, City have been able to control games more effectively when starting with a midfield trio of Rodri, Ilkay Gundogan and Bernardo Silva. Of the 26 games since the start of last season that those three have started in midfield together, City have won 24.
The replacement of either Gundogan or Bernardo with De Bruyne has wielded mixed results this term - City fared well against Chelsea and Liverpool, but less so against West Ham and Crystal Palace.
That’s likely because against the latter two sides City were required to unpick low-block defences, something that a sub-par De Bruyne struggled to do. While United did afford more space for him to exploit they also sit deep at times, and on this occasion De Bruyne had no issues creating chances.
As well as looking creatively sharp, De Bruyne showed his versatility by occasionally pushing up into the false nine position when Bernardo dropped deep, as well as dropping into defence when United began pressing City in order to aid ball progression from the back.