In the age of the playmaker, De Bruyne is the perfect 10

Premier League is blessed with creative attacking midfielders but the concern is that only one of the most productive is English

For football to rise above scuffle and tribal noise it needs players who can see a pass, hurt the opposition, turn a game by using space as a weapon. The good news is that the Premier League is packed with lethal attacking midfielders. Less encouraging is that only one is English.

Several painful tournaments ago, a group of us sat with Sir Trevor Brooking, then of the Football Association, who told us the English game needed to produce more No10s. Brooking had in mind the kind of low-centre-ofgravity, floating Spanish midfielder that approximated to Xavi or David Silva. There was a dearth of creativity the system needed to address. Paul Scholes was the exception that proved the rule.

The debate has moved on since then. Surgical, attacking midfielders no longer have to conform to that diminutive physical template. If you needed to present the current version of such a player to a seminar, you could do a lot worse than call Kevin De Bruyne on stage. As Manchester City’s 5-0 win over Liverpool at the weekend demonstrated, De Bruyne is a phenomenally productive player who can attack in myriad ways. Mostly, he cuts you apart with his passing, and is so prolific in setting up goals for others that he might qualify as a registered charity.

In City’s populous construction unit, De Bruyne leads the march into another Champions League campaign, starting against Feyenoord tonight. His performance against Liverpool is still glowing. “Complete, complete player,” is how Pep Guardiola described him. “He sees absolutely everything,” is another compliment from a manager who stood on the touchline at Barcelona as the boss of Lionel Messi, Xavi and Andres Iniesta.

When Dele Alli returns from suspension, Spurs can field two creative midfielders of their own. Both are a huge help to Harry Kane, who feeds off their passes, long and short.