From A Chelsea Reject To A Manchester City Superstarbe- The Meteoric Rise Of Kevin De Bruyne
As if losing to bottom-placed Crystal Palace was not enough, Chelsea also had to swallow a rather bitter pill in the form of their former reject Kevin De Bruyne’s scintillating performance for Manchester City in the Champions League. Week in and week out, the Belgian proves his vitality for the club. An indispensable member of Pep Guardiola’s squad, De Bruyne shows no signs of stopping any time soon.
In fact, one might even say that he is in the best form of his Manchester City career so far. When he first joined the club, he did not immediately hit the ground running. From being unheard of, to slowly making an impact, De Bruyne has come a long way. He is now a key player for the top club in the Premier League, and has also carved a place for himself in the hearts of many City fans across the world.
In the last 18 games Premier League games, De Bruyne has scored 3 goals while raking in 14 assists. It’s a truly remarkable record but it does not fully convey the extent of his impact for the club. For example, numbers will only say that Gabriel Jesus and Raheem Sterling scored City’s first two goals at the Etihad against Stoke City, owing to assists provided by Kyle Walker and Leroy Sane.
Those numbers, however, do not denote the masterful touches applied by De Bruyne in both the moves. They were probably more important than his two assists later, that finally took the game away from Stoke after they had fought back from three goals down to come back up to 3-2.
De Bruyne was clearly the man of the hour as was evident from the standing ovation he received when he was replaced by Ilkay Gundogan in the 66th minute after setting up the 4th and the 6th goals. There was a haunting similarity between them in the sense that both portrayed De Bruyne’s hunger and determination to progress further.
Judging from the massive improvement in his performances this season, the prolific midfielder can also be touted as one of the most complete players in the Premier League. He is a very balanced player in every sense, and seems to have mastered the tricky art of balancing creativity with caution.
He has everything one would want from a modern day midfielder – possibly even more than what Paul Pogba offers. Kevin De Bruyne is certainly making the £55m Manchester City paid for him look cheap with the consistent quality of his outputs of late.
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