Kevin de Bruyne

[Fernando 6,484]

12 hours ago, the wes said:

Blame mourinho for that

We screwed up but after a screw up there's a lesson to be learn. 

I feel like that the board learned the lesson. 

It is why Lampard is back and will be giving support to play youth. 

[Atomiswave 6,072]

WHats even more infuriating is that he games for stinking City......at least if he was playing abroad it would dampen the anger.

[robsblubot 3,528]

On 9/10/2019 at 3:37 AM, MCM4PR3Z said:

A pure hattrick of assists. All after each other, all in the same half

Well,  my unpopular opinion around Here has always been that he’s Belgium’s best player, not hazard.

hazard is more easily contained, still not easy obviously, but teams can give him the side and contain his influence. Kevin plays in the centre and has a huge passing rage, which means that he can be dangerous even still far away from opposition goal, which means away from the contested areas.

and then if he does get close to the opposition goal, he can still both assist and score from afar. That’s a lot to worry about when playing against him.

Therefore a team who wants anything from playing Belgium needs to stop Kevin, imo.

[Rapkun 668]

58 minutes ago, Robchels said:

Well,  my unpopular opinion around Here has always been that he’s Belgium’s best player, not hazard.

hazard is more easily contained, still not easy obviously, but teams can give him the side and contain his influence. Kevin plays in the centre and has a huge passing rage, which means that he can be dangerous even still far away from opposition goal, which means away from the contested areas.

and then if he does get close to the opposition goal, he can still both assist and score from afar. That’s a lot to worry about when playing against him.

Therefore a team who wants anything from playing Belgium needs to stop Kevin, imo.

Maybe Hazard is easier to contain because teams put more players on him? I don't think any coach in their right mind would prioritize isolating KDB before Hazard. Eden is deadly on 1vs1, that makes him by default the more dangerous player.

[robsblubot 3,528]

1 minute ago, Rapkun said:

Maybe Hazard is easier to contain because teams put more players on him? I don't think any coach in their right mind would prioritize isolating KDB before Hazard. Eden is deadly on 1vs1, that makes him by default the more dangerous player.

I disagree.

It’s the characteristics. Kdb is far superior at passing and shooting, while hazard relies exclusively on dribbling. If you move the defense line deeper, that helps blocking Hazard with defenders in proximity, but does little against a player like Kdb. Hazard is poor at long-range shooting and pretty mediocre passer for his overall quality. His passing distinctly lacks range.

like I said, at least to my eyes, kdb is usually the key player when Belgium wins against any tough opponent.

but then again, I’m not a hazard fan. He’s overrated for me.

[Rapkun 668]

Just now, Robchels said:

I disagree.

It’s the characteristics. Kdb is far superior at passing and shooting, while hazard relies exclusively on dribbling. If you move the defense line deeper, that helps blocking Hazard with defenders in proximity, but does little against a player like Kdb. Hazard is poor at long-range shooting and pretty mediocre passer for his overall quality. His passing distinctly lacks range.

like I said, at least to my eyes, kdb is usually the key player when Belgium wins against any tough opponent.

but then again, I’m not a hazard fan. He’s overrated for me.

Deeper block is the exact situation where Hazard edges it. KDB with no space will find it difficult to play his game, whereas Hazard's dribbling ability will open teams up. When France sat deep vs Belgium at the WC, which of the 2 was the most dangerous player? Passes are nice but the best thing against these teams parking the bus are dribblers. Even Pep with his fancy system needs dribblers (see Sterling, Sane, Bernardo, Mahrez).

[robsblubot 3,528]

On 9/15/2019 at 3:37 PM, Rapkun said:

Deeper block is the exact situation where Hazard edges it. KDB with no space will find it difficult to play his game, whereas Hazard's dribbling ability will open teams up. When France sat deep vs Belgium at the WC, which of the 2 was the most dangerous player? Passes are nice but the best thing against these teams parking the bus are dribblers. Even Pep with his fancy system needs dribblers (see Sterling, Sane, Bernardo, Mahrez).

A guy who can shoot from afar does not need to penetrate the opposition defense in a low block, because he can shoot before the opposition defense can apply pressure. Same with key passes and assists from afar. Courinho made a career just doing exactly that (and not much else).

sorry I completely disagree. For me hazard thrives in counter attacking situations with lots of spaces for his runs and dribbling. Seen way too many times low block making him pretty ineffective.

KDB is the far more complete and versatile player in my book.

[grotenbees 15]

another masterclass today

[Jase 43,479]

 

[Fernando 6,484]

Yeah biggest mistake of the decade. 

But it's good that it happen because it remove the shadow of Mourinho. 

Before, no manager was able to measure to Mourinho. I remember when we had Carlo and other manager it was always compare to Mourinho by many fans. No one was able to measure. 

So in a good sense it's good that happen so we can move on from that. 

[MCM4PR3Z 411]

Masterclass from De Bruyne. He teared up Real completely.

[Vesper 29,008]

12 hours ago, MCM4PR3Z said:

Masterclass from De Bruyne. He teared up Real completely.

Best AMF by far on the planet. Biggest gap between top and 2nd best at any position is AMF.

Fuck Mou and the board forever!!! We had just turned 21yo (so old enough to legally drink finally in the land of the yanks lol) and were in NYC visiting some friends, so went out to a pub near Gramercy Park and drowned tears of sorrow in some dirty martinis when he was sold.

I still cry a wee bit at times. 

[Vesper 29,008]

De Bruyne is Manchester City’s galactico talent – but without the ego

https://theathletic.com/1638360/2020/02/27/kevin-de-bruyne-manchester-city-real-madrid-champions-league-real-madrid-champions-league/

As inch-perfect as it might have been, the cross itself was not what took the breath away. Far more than that, it was the audacity, the imagination, the ability to master space and time in a high-pressure situation on one of the great stages in world sport.

Time was running out for Manchester City at the Bernabeu when Kevin de Bruyne received the ball on the corner of the Real Madrid penalty area. More than that, it looked like the walls were closing in. There were four opponents within five yards of him and another six holding their positions nearby. He had only one team-mate in the box. There was nowhere to go.

De Bruyne’s first touch took him away from Luka Modric, but Federico Valverde was still snapping at his heels as he headed towards the by-line. Raphael Varane, Casemiro and Dani Carvajal converged on him at once like a trio of cartoon henchmen. De Bruyne’s second touch seemed to have taken him down a one-way street, but then, like one of the great matadors, he turned sharply and sent his opponents in the other direction. In the same movement, he produced a cross of such precision that Gabriel Jesus was able to rise above Sergio Ramos to score the goal that changed the course of this last-16 tie and potentially this Champions League campaign.

“He turns away from goal, he’s being pushed away from goal and there’s a simple pass,” Graeme Souness, the former Liverpool captain and manager, said on Virgin Media TV after a famous 2-1 win for City. “Ninety-nine out of 100 footballers would just lay it out to Raheem Sterling. He doesn’t. He whips it in and catches everyone by surprise — nearly including his own player [Jesus].

“He’s the best midfielder around. I’ve said best in Britain, but I will take that to Europe now. He would get in Real Madrid’s team, he would get in Barcelona’s team, he would get in Bayern Munich’s team, and he would get in Liverpool’s team. ”

Would anyone disagree with that? There are many different types of midfielder but in terms of combining energy, drive and creative threat, there is arguably nobody else in the De Bruyne class right now. He set up the equaliser against Madrid before scoring the winner from the penalty spot, but even before that, his all-round contribution, in an unfamiliar role in the unfamiliar system chosen by Pep Guardiola, was of the highest quality.

Even in the first half, as City took time to settle into their rhythm, there were sublime through-balls for Jesus and for Bernardo Silva and a cute little dummy that created an opening he could not seize. He twice won the ball from Carvajal in dangerous positions. Every time the ball was at his feet, possibilities emerged and expectations soared, as did the sense of unease among the home crowd.

It was easy to imagine Florentino Perez, the Real Madrid president, watching in a growing state of agitation before announcing to his fellow directors, with a cursory flick of the wrist, “That one”.

That is how Perez operates, working on the assumption that if he sees a player he likes, he can sign him.

There was an article in Marca yesterday morning about how Perez had set his sights on Ilkay Gundogan after the midfielder caught the eye on that extraordinary night when Jurgen Klopp’s Borussia Dortmund beat Madrid 4-1 in the first leg of a Champions League semi-final in 2013. Gundogan’s brother and agent was summoned to the Spanish capital that summer to finalise a transfer but “Operation Gundogan” fell through at the last moment and three years later the player ended up signing for City, where he is so integral to Guardiola’s plans.

Next to that article, there was a smaller piece that listed another four City players who “could have” — coulda, woulda, shoulda in the eyes of the Madrid sports media — signed for Real: the story of unrequited love for David Silva, whose then-club Valencia set too high an asking price before he went to Manchester in 2010; Sergio Aguero, whose hopes of engineering a controversial cross-city move were blocked by Atletico Madrid president Gil Marin; Jesus, who was close to joining Real in the summer of 2016 “until a telephone call from Guardiola changed his destiny” (though there was also the claim that the forward still wanted to join Real two years later); and, most intriguingly, Kyle Walker, who was said to be a target in 2014, only for Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy to raise obstacles that were “impossible to overcome”.

Then there is that ongoing narrative about a potential move for Raheem Sterling, who had a highly significant impact as a substitute last night on his return from injury. To a certain level of bemusement at City, the England winger conducted an exclusive interview with Madrid-based newspaper AS in the build-up to this tie, appearing on its front page with the shirts of both clubs on his shoulder.

In Madrid, not least in the president’s office, there is still a certain assumption that what Perez wants, Perez gets. Over the 11 years since his return to the presidency, Real Madrid have signed Cristiano Ronaldo from Manchester United, Xabi Alonso and Alvaro Arbeloa from Liverpool, Modric and Gareth Bale from Tottenham and Thibaut Courtois and Eden Hazard from Chelsea. City, who have had the most desirable group of players in the Premier League over that period, have been left unscathed by football’s apex predator, other than the departure of Brahim Diaz, a young Spanish midfielder who has found it hard to force his way into Zinedine Zidane’s plans.

It must seem delightfully incongruous from City’s perspective that De Bruyne barely gets a mention in those Madrid-based newspapers that are so closely connected to Perez and the Real hierarchy. Perhaps, for a club whose transfer policy has had a clear commercial dimension under Perez’s presidency, the rosy-cheeked, spiky-haired bloke from provincial Belgium has been felt to lack a certain galactico appeal — unlike, for example, Paul Pogba, whose lack of consistency over his four seasons at Manchester United has not stopped him being linked with Real, Barcelona and Juventus. (Souness might have a view on this too…)

De Bruyne is a player who was so frustrated by his lack opportunities as a youngster at Chelsea that he left the bright lights of London behind in order to relaunch his career amid the Volkswagen headlights of Wolfsburg. He is not a player with a superstar entourage or a superstar mentality. People at City describe him as “the quietest guy in the building”, “no trouble at all”. He can be opinionated and tetchy but he is regarded as an ultimate professional who gets his head down and works. As his perfunctory post-match interviews showed last night, he does his talking on the pitch.

Along with their agents, so many leading players in the Premier League down the years have flirted with Real Madrid, particularly when the time has come to negotiate a new contract. De Bruyne has never seemed the type for that. With his stock at an all-time high midway through City’s record-breaking 2017-18 season, he signed a new five-year contract with the minimum of fuss, a deal that went almost unnoticed amid the fanfare over Alexis Sanchez’s move to Manchester United. At Old Trafford they drew gloating comparisons between the social media impact of those two announcements. At City they prefer to point to the contrasting contributions on the pitch over the two years since.

There were murmurs of interest from Real Madrid back then but there was nothing to suggest it was ever a priority for De Bruyne or indeed his agent Patrick De Koster. In fact, De Koster appeared on a Belgian football podcast yesterday in which he gave a novel explanation for not attending the game at the Bernabeu. “I’m not going to Madrid,” he said. “I don’t want to cause controversy. If they spot me there, they’ll say, ‘He’s in Madrid to negotiate a move.’ Let’s rule it out. I have a big TV at home. No controversy.”

Unless, of course, you conclude that De Koster is saying that as a means of flirting with Real now that contract discussions are coming around once more… But no, it genuinely seems not. Among those close to De Bruyne, there is no desire to talk up the possibility. There is vague talk of interest, a suggestion that Zidane is a known admirer, but also a firm assurance that the player is very happy in Manchester both personally and professionally. As a sign of that, he is having his house rebuilt.

De Bruyne will be 29 this summer. He has already agreed to commit the best years of his career to City. As with several of these players, there is the nagging concern that some might find they have cause to reconsider their future if the club fail to overturn a two-year ban from European competition for alleged breaches of UEFA’s financial fair play regulations. The message from the club to all City players and their representatives, though, has been a calm one: Trust us. We are appealing the sanction. We will be in the Champions League next season.

For Guardiola and his players, the only thought about their future in the Champions League is about trying to win it this season. “If we don’t win it, everybody is going to say we are failures, like the last five years,” De Bruyne said, tongue in cheek, in the build-up to this tie.

How things had changed since City were last here to face Real. That was a semi-final second leg in 2016 — still their high watermark in this competition but a night that is remembered with regrets. De Bruyne, having not yet really made his mark at City, was stationed on the left wing by Manuel Pellegrini, while Jesus Navas was preferred to Sterling on the right. Vincent Kompany limped off in the early stages and Yaya Toure, at 32, looked like a player struggling to defy the sands of time. Just one goal in the Bernabeu would have taken City through but Pellegrini stuck with Fernando alongside Fernandinho in midfield throughout a frustrating evening.

As if to reflect the changing of the guard over the four years since, De Bruyne was one of only two survivors from that line-up who started for City last night (The other was an unlikely one: Nicolas Otamendi). With Fernandinho, Silva and Sergio Aguero all left out of the starting XI, De Bruyne was captain this time.

Rather than drive City forward from midfield, he (17 in the pitch map below) and Bernardo Silva (20) were deployed as twin false nines, with Riyad Mahrez (26) and Jesus (9) patrolling the flanks in just about the most unorthodox 4-4-2 you could imagine. As with a similar set-up in that Carabao Cup semi-final first-leg victory away to Manchester United last month, De Bruyne relished it.

City’s average position map against Real Madrid, with De Bruyne (17) their most advanced player

Guardiola freely admits he asks a lot of his players — physically, technically, psychologically, tactically. There was so much for all of them to take on and contend with last night, but their collective effort was defined by the industry and intelligence that Jesus brought to that unfamiliar left-wing role and perhaps above all by the discipline, vision, creativity and leadership that De Bruyne demonstrated in a match where he spent much of the time with his back to the opposition goal.

De Bruyne has had an extraordinary season; for all Liverpool’s dominance of the Premier League, he remains a strong contender for the individual awards. This was another superb performance, culminating with an ice-cool finish from the penalty spot — making it look easy, which, as City’s struggles from 12 yards this season confirm, is not always the case.

    De Bruyne’s touch map against Real Madrid

There was another moment early in the second half when, just short of the centre circle, he took the ball on the half-turn, raced 45 yards upfield and then laid it off perfectly to Mahrez, whose shot curled just wide of the far post. This was the point at which City were building momentum, growing in belief, turning the screw on Real.

As Guardiola said recently, De Bruyne “sees passes and actions that normal humans can’t see”.

One hesitates to say it, but there was something almost Zidane-like about his performance against Real last night and particularly about his contribution to that equalising goal in the 78th minute. It was a point when, having fallen behind after a disciplined performance for the first hour, City were crying out for inspiration, for someone to seize the moment and produce a little bit of magic.

For those City supporters whose celebrations continued well into the early hours in the bars around the Bernabeu, it got better on every viewing.

After two weeks dominated by talk of FFP sanctions, adjudicatory chambers and appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, here was a wonderful and very timely reminder of what, on the pitch at least, the modern Manchester City is all about.

De Bruyne, a galactico talent with a distinctly sub-galactico ego, is the embodiment of that.

[Vesper 29,008]

Kevin De Bruyne’s corridor of certainty — ranking his top 10 assists for City

https://theathletic.com/1723203/2020/04/06/kevin-de-bruynes-manchester-city/

Kevin De Bruyne had racked up 16 assists in the Premier League before the campaign was derailed, leaving him just four away from breaking Thierry Henry’s record of 20, which has stood since the 2002-03 season.

Over the past year or so, the Manchester City midfielder has created his signature assist — the low cross from the right-hand side that seemingly no defence can do anything about. He has created a corridor of certainty.

De Bruyne has been conjuring chances out of nothing throughout his career, and has amassed quite a collection of assists during his near five years at the Etihad Stadium.

So which is his best assist?

10. Crystal Palace 1-2 Manchester City, November 2016

Despite making that right-sided cross his trademark, it’s the variety of De Bruyne’s assists that have made him such a consistent threat.

Going back to Pep Guardiola’s first season in England, here’s an example of how the Belgian does stuff out of the ordinary.

On an already unpredictable afternoon at Selhurst Park — Yaya Toure made a sudden and shock return from almost three months in exile — De Bruyne set the ball down for a corner on the right-hand side and put his right hand in the air, a signal to his team-mates of what was to come.

He then fired in a low cross along the ground that had enough pace on it to go pretty much exactly where it needed to. Maybe David Silva could have got to it, maybe he was a decoy, but the ball fell to Toure around six yards out, for the Ivorian to cap his surprise comeback with a match-winning goal double.

With less than 10 minutes left and the score tied at 1-1, it was De Bruyne’s unusual delivery — the equivalent of a direct free kick sneaking underneath a jumping wall, which he’s also done — that made the difference.

9. Crystal Palace 1-3 Manchester City, April 2019

Not all of De Bruyne’s assists have come at Selhurst Park but this was another example of how he can carve open the most disciplined of defences. With City needing to win every game at the back end of last season to fend off the threat of Liverpool, this trip to Palace — five days after losing the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final across London at Tottenham — was earmarked as a tricky assignment, so much so that Guardiola had rested De Bruyne and Leroy Sane against Spurs for it.

Less than 15 minutes in, De Bruyne picked up the ball inside his own half, took a few strides forward and then lasered a straight pass directly through the Palace midfield and defence.

The ball slowed down perfectly the second Raheem Sterling met it inside the area. The England forward took one touch and buried a superb finish in the far top corner.

Sterling still had plenty to do with the finish, but De Bruyne’s pass helped City on their way to an important victory. For good measure he also got the assist for their third goal by Gabriel Jesus at the end, which clinched a 3-1 win.

8. Manchester City 5-1 Leicester City, February 2018

The best De Bruyne assists are generally those that give team-mates a proper tap-in.

In the past year, most of these low crosses to the back post have come from the right, but on this occasion he showed he can do it from the other side too, even with the angle against him.

As part of a one-two with Sterling on the left, he ran down the side of the Leicester defence and then, perhaps because the pass was slightly behind him, perhaps because he felt it was the most unpredictable route, probably just because it was the best route, De Bruyne opened up his body, fading away to the left, and curled the ball to the back post with his right foot for Sergio Aguero to score his first of a four-goal haul.

It was a display of fantastic technique that produced a cross precise enough to evade the defenders going one way and the goalkeeper going the other and, if you look closely, you can see his arms come out in celebration before the ball has even passed the last defender.

He knew.

7. Manchester City 6-1 Newcastle United, October 2015

He could have done it with his left foot if he’d really wanted to. Going back to the early months of his first season at City, under Manuel Pellegrini, De Bruyne and Aguero combined to score basically the same goal as above, this time against Newcastle.

Only when he got the ball in a similar area of the pitch here, he was facing the corner flag.

As soon as the time was right, he swivelled in the opposite direction and played a first-time low cross with his left foot that evaded everybody and found Aguero at the back post, allowing the Argentinean to slide in his fifth and final goal of a very long afternoon for the visitors.

A goal out of nothing.

6. Southampton 0-1 Manchester City, May 2018

This one was out of nothing, too, especially given the 92 minutes of drudgery that came before it.

City needed to win at St Mary’s on the final day of the season to reach the 100-point milestone, but the match was played at a snail’s pace and little happened in it.

Enter De Bruyne. This was far from his most artistic of assists but for the sheer significance of the goal, not to mention the scenes in the away end and on the touchline (did Ederson, a substitute, get booked for his celebrations?) it has to be on this list.

Compared to his other efforts, this was a rather agricultural hoof over the top. But De Bruyne chose this as his third favourite assist in an interview last year: “It’s just precision, you have to manage how hard you’re going to kick it, but the main thing is that you get the ball over the defence, that it gets into his stride, without stopping, and he has to do the rest.”

That was probably a rare example of De Bruyne making something that looks easy sound difficult, but had he not perfectly weighted that ball over the top from inside his own half, Jesus would never have been able to take it down and scoop it over goalkeeper Alex McCarthy to create one of the most iconic moments in recent club history.

5. Aston Villa 1-6 Manchester City, January 2020

Our top five places are reserved for true art.

While this assist is not as symbolically important as No 6 was, it is a much better representation of De Bruyne’s abilities.

Three of them in particular; the ability to drive the ball forward, to know where it needs to go, and to get it there.

Just before half-time in a Villa Park hammering, he pulled out one of those pinpoint right-sided crosses, but added a few extra levels of difficulty. Normally he needs the help of somebody else to create those crucial spaces just outside the area for him, whether a one-two or sneakily arriving from right-back, but this time he did it himself. Picking up a fairly routine square ball just past halfway, he immediately set off towards goal, leaving two men in his wake.

Within four seconds he was in that favoured spot of his and he knew somebody would be gambling at the far post. This time it was Jesus, who again was left with a pretty simple finish.

Jesus was in so much space that you feared the intervention of the dreaded VAR, but replays showed De Bruyne had just bent the ball around what was left of the Villa defence.

4. Arsenal 2-2 Manchester City, April 2017

This one is maybe a bit more obscure, but it’s a great example of De Bruyne making the incredibly difficult look far too easy.

Nobody quite knew what to make of this early-days Guardiola team late in the Spaniard’s debut season, when they went to the equally enigmatic Arsenal.

After Danny Welbeck nearly scored with a slide tackle, Willy Caballero’s clipped goal kick into midfield was won in the air by Shkodran Mustafi. The ball was at hip height when it bounced up to De Bruyne, so he quickly positioned himself to propel it forward with his instep.

The ball travelled between five Arsenal players and now Sane was racing in on goal. The German didn’t touch the ball until he was about 20 yards out, allowing him to dance past David Ospina and put the ball into an empty net. In the blink of an eye, City were in the lead.

A lot of De Bruyne’s assists come from pre-planned patterns of play, but he’s always had the ability to conjure something out of nothing, and this is a fantastic example.

3. Manchester City 5-0 Liverpool, September 2017

Here’s another, and possibly another forgotten one, from a thumping of Liverpool that is looked upon a little differently given Sadio Mane’s red card midway through the first half. But before that wince-making collision with Ederson, City were a goal up — and De Bruyne created it.

There was barely anything happening as the ball dropped at his feet from Fernandinho’s header in midfield, so much so that Liverpool’s famous press had no time to spring into action.

As De Bruyne put his foot on the ball and turned his head to look towards goal, Aguero was on the move. “Give it to me!” he briefly gestured with his arms. Look at the clock in the grabs below: less than a second.

De Bruyne did give it to him. From a square-on position he quickly turned and played a routine-looking ball straight through the heart of the Liverpool defence.

Again, it ran so perfectly that Aguero did not touch it until he had set foot in the penalty area, again allowing him to nip around goalkeeper Simon Mignolet and finish into an empty net.

‘All’ De Bruyne did was put his foot on the ball, look to his left and play a 20-yard pass in a straight line. Simple, but devastatingly effective.

2. Everton 1-3 Manchester City, March 2018

This assist is a bit like the one at Arsenal, version 2.0. Maybe 3.0. It is a beautiful goal that happened so quickly, you’d do well to find a proper camera angle of the whole move.

Again it started with a goal kick, but this time with a little more direction. The Everton players, not wanting to be caught out by a huge Ederson punt over the top, nor let visitors City play out too easily from the back, left acres of space in the middle of the pitch. Ederson clipped the ball right into the heart of that space, where Sane had burst inside to meet it.

As soon as this happened, De Bruyne took off down the right. This was clearly pre-planned. Sane flicked the bouncing ball past a couple of players and lobbed it over the top for the Belgian.

Again it was at around hip height at the time of impact, and he was on the stretch too, but that did not stop him helping the ball on its way to Jesus, who was in the right place to plant a header into the net, albeit off goalkeeper Jordan Pickford’s shoulder.

It was not the cleanest end to the move but it was clearly planned to perfection, and to see it unfold in real time was a real privilege. It clearly meant a lot to the City bench, who celebrated with each other as if to say, “We knew that was gonna work”.

1. Manchester City 7-2 Stoke City, October 2017

You all probably guessed it was going to be this one, but it is the obvious choice because it’s the best. It’s the one that springs to mind most readily, no matter how many inch-perfect assists De Bruyne has delivered in more than two years since it happened.

But first, an honourable mention to one of the best second-assists in Premier League history, when De Bruyne turned this shooting opportunity into a through-ball to Sane, allowing the winger to square it to Sterling for a tap-in.

Stoke then scored two quick goals either side of half-time, which their then-boss Mark Hughes quipped only served to anger City, who answered with their fourth, fifth and sixth of the game all in the space of seven minutes; De Bruyne setting up two of them.

First, he won the ball back from Kurt Zouma just inside the Stoke half, stormed onto the loose ball, charged down the right and fired in an inch-perfect cross that curled around the last defender and found Jesus at the far post. It was classic De Bruyne, that fabulous blend of industry and ingenuity.

And that was just the warm-up.

Just over five minutes later, he stretched to make a loose pass his, again just inside the visitors’ half. As he took one more touch forward he surveyed what lay ahead of him; Jesus was deep, because it was his bad ball that nearly got City into trouble. Sterling was pretty well covered and Sane was all the way over on the other side of the pitch, but Kyle Walker was open on the right.

De Bruyne went for Sane.

The result was something that looked more at home at the lawn bowls world championship, arrowing yet curling delicately towards its target, speeding up and then slowing down exactly when it needed to.

Behind the midfielder yet in front of the defender, it still had enough legs on it to beat the full-back who was a good 30 yards away, and hardly in a bad position either, and roll straight into the path of Sane’s left foot, allowing him to stride on to it and score.

De Bruyne said recently that he will extend his career an extra two years due to how much he is missing football during this coronavirus triggered lay-off.

Here’s to many more of these inspired moments.

[MCM4PR3Z 411]

How does he do all those things? Is this the best player ever that played for Chelsea?

[DDA 9,691]

12 hours ago, MCM4PR3Z said:

How does he do all those things? Is this the best player ever that played for Chelsea?

Behave. 

[LAM09 6,777]

Behave. 

Just check his post history

[Vesper 29,008]

22 hours ago, MCM4PR3Z said:

How does he do all those things? Is this the best player ever that played for Chelsea?

We have multiple players who the best in the world at their positions for a period of time whilst they were at Chelsea

Lampard at AMF

Terry at CB 

Claude Makélélé at DMF (partially at Real Madrid)

Kante at DMF

Ashley Cole at LB (partially at Arse)

you could make a case for Cech at times (Buffon though,and Neuer and Casillas as well), and also one can make a case for Drogba at pure CF a couple years split up (Drogba peaked after Henry's last all world year)

 

KDB is by FAR the best AMF in the world atm, but none of this occurred here (FUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK)