1 week Ago By Subhadeep Roy, Extratime Talk
Kevin De Bruyne has announced that he will be leaving Manchester City at the end of the current season. De Bruyne joined Manchester City in 2015 when Manuel Pellegrini was the Cityzens’ boss. Since then, he has won a UEFA Champions League, six Premier League and three FA Cup titles with the club, playing a pivotal role in its most glorious era under Pep Guardiola.
De Bruyne joined Manchester City from VfL Wolfsburg after three seasons at the German club. Prior to that, he had registered nine appearances for Chelsea in the 2013-14 season. However, there was hardly any indication of the things to come while he was playing for Chelsea.
Kevin De Bruyne Has Cemented His Place Among the Premier League’s Midfield Elite De Bruyne has played in 414 matches for the English champions and scored 106 goals. With 118 assists in Premier League alone for the club , the Belgian playmaker has left an indelible impact for the club. There is almost nothing that De Bruyne has not done on the football pitch.
He can play crosses with his right foot extremely well, can play delectable through passes and plays one-two with the striker. Besides that, he has also scored a lot of goals with shots from the edge of the opposition’s penalty box. However, there is a solace for the lesser mortals that can make de Bruyne appear human after all.
The Belgian midfielder, who will turn 34 in June, is not very adept at playing crosses into the box with his left foot, which probably remains his only shortcoming as a player. Still, De Bruyne’s best moments for the Cityzens, somewhat surprisingly, consisted of ones which helped them go directly from their usual playing style involving short passes. De Bruyne has been the most expensive and brightly shining jewel on the adornment of the incredibly successful Manchester City side under Guardiola.
Since the heydays of Manchester United under Sir Alex Ferguson, no other English club has experienced such lofty success consistently. This automatically makes De Bruyne one of the greatest players in the Premier League era. There have been other greats like Sergio Aguero, Vincent Kompany, Fernandinho, Bernardo Silva and Rodri, who have each contributed immensely to the Cityzens’ marauding run.
However, none of them has probably been as influential and as decisive as De Bruyne. But as the ongoing season demonstrated, De Bruyne’s effect seems to be on the wane. He has often been plagued by injuries since the start of the previous season.
Moreover, his speed also seems to have been affected a bit by his growing age. He still retains the eye for a prospective goal-scoring opportunity, though. In Manchester City’s recent win over AFC Bournemouth in the FA Cup quarterfinal, De Bruyne started a counter-attacking move that led to one of the Cityzens’ goals.
Despite his form suffering a bit along with that of his team, De Bruyne still has two goals and six assists in 20 league matches this season. Whether a statue is erected outside the Etihad Stadium for him or not, De Bruyne’s status as of the club’s greats is already ensured. Football lovers all over the world will hope that he will move to a place where he can end his career on a high.
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