Assister Act! KDB says he has record
DE BRUYNE CLAIMS HE’S BEATEN HENRY’S PREMIER LEAGUE TALLY
KEVIN De Bruyne insists he has 22 assists for the season, which would see him hold the Premier League record outright.
De Bruyne officially registered his 20th assist of the season when he set up Raheem Sterling to score in City’s 5-0 win over Norwich, equalling Thierry Henry’s record.
The Belgian won the Playmaker of the Year award for being the player with the most assists, and stands level with Henry for the all-time record in a single season.
However, De Bruyne was in no mood to accept that figure, as he used his post-match interview to claim the two assists the Premier League took off him in the home and away fixtures against Arsenal, where his balls to the City goalscorer took slight deflections.
“I’ve got two more!” he said when asked how it felt to equal the record. “You guys took two away from me, I’m still claiming that one! For me I was already above.
“It is what it is. I need my teammates, because obviously I’m helping them creating to score. If they score then I will get it. It’s nice to have, and it’s nice to have it with Thierry.”
De Bruyne was not the only player to win an award, as Ederson picked up the Golden Glove award for his 16th clean sheet.
“It’s great,” De Bruyne said of Ederson’s win.
“If you end up the season with that many clean sheets it means you’ve done quite well. In the five years I’ve been here our defence has been criticised a lot, but I think we do fairly okay. We lost some points this year. He’s been great since he’s been here.”
Now, De Bruyne is looking ahead to City’s Champions League meeting with Real Madrid, where he set his sights on reaching the final of that competition.
He said: “It was a good 90 minutes for us because obviously we’ve still got the Champions League to play. So it’s good to stay in the rhythm. Now we’ve got two weeks to rest up a bit and train hard to be ready. Hopefully we can play another four games, but we’ve got some football to play.”
Pep Guardiola was quick to point out the quality of De Bruyne’s second goal in the 5-0 victory.
The first was an unstoppable arcing effort into the far corner from outside the box, and the second an unstoppable shot from inside the box that managed to be both smashed and placed.
Guardiola did not feel the need to speak to De Bruyne specifically about the assists target before the game, instead telling him not to focus too much on it and that it would come naturally.
If the coach does not have to worry about the 29-year-old’s ability to produce great chances for the team, he hammered home the importance of the player also stepping up to score. Asked about the quality of the first goal, he said: “The two! The second one is really nice too and I like it.
“We know the assists and the quality he has but we need his goals too and today he scored two special goals.
“Everyone knew [about the records] from the media and we told him to play simple as you know don’t be focussed too much and it will come along. He made one assist but could have broken the record easily. Instead he’ll share with Thierry Henry and he played really good.
“With the individual targets when they are focused to achieve something it is good. Athletes always want to be better and always benefit for the team.”