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When your manager walks into a press conference before a Champions League match and proceeds to tell the assorted hacks sitting there that you are “an upset kid, training very bad and not ready to compete”, you know something is wrong. One of the many young starlets picked up by the impressive, and massive, Chelsea youth scouting system, Kevin De Bruyne had been earmarked very early as a special talent and yet it had not worked out too well for the young Belgian.
As with many of these young talents, he had been farmed out on loan to Werder Bremen before he got a kick in a Blues shirt. With his head-up dribbling and his willingness to play the risky-forward-pass-that-could-open-up-a-defence rather than the safer-make-sure-possession-is-not-lost-pass, he had a quietly impressive season at Bremen; scoring 10 and providing 9 assists.
Yet on his return to Stamford Bridge he could barely get a kick of the ball. After a torturous half-season of waiting on the wings, and having to put up with Jose Mourinho telling the world he doesn’t train well, he (and Chelsea) decided that he (they) had had enough and a move was sealed to Wolfsburg.
How De Bruyne lit up the Bundesliga with Wolfsburg
In an environment that he knew well, De Bruyne flourished. Last season, he moved into fifth gear –pulling Die Wölfe to a vastly impressive second-place in the Bundesliga, almost on his own. In 34 games, he scored 10 and assisted another 21 goals – that last bit a new Bundesliga record.
That is a goal created, or scored every 101 minutes – a better ratio, by far than anyone in the Premier League last season (Angel Di Maria (!), Cesc Fabregas and David Silva were the top 3 in England).
At the end of that path-breaking season – and all competitions considered – he ended up with 16 goals, 28 assists and the Player of the Year Award in Germany. Not bad for someone who apparently couldn’t handle the competition for places at Chelsea, eh? (Another Jose gem, that)
Why Manchester City were right to spend £55 million on De Bruyne
To say he earned his move to Manchester City is putting it lightly. Even in today’s world of over-inflated player transfers, a £55 million transfer fee is no joke. While it is a damning indictment on just how cash-rich today’s game has become for a club to spend such a ludicrous amount on a player who had one good season, it is also a testament to just how good the Belgian is and, more importantly, how much more potential he has to become even better!
A few doubted whether City’s ambitious bid – a record for the club, and second highest in the history British football – would pay off. But this time the 24-year-old has taken to the league like a fish that has just remembered that it really does belong in the water, no matter what anyone says (hello there, Jose).
The thing is though, the spine of the City team still remains the same. David Silva, Yaya Toure and Sergio Aguero are still the players that the team is built around, and why not. There is no better finisher in the world than the Argentinian, very few who can create the sort of magic that the Spaniard can and there really is no one in the world comparable to the Ivory Coast juggernaut.
But champion teams often need to supplement such world-class spines with just that extra bit of support; they need to shake things up by getting top-notch players who do things differently – that’s what Barcelona did with Luis Suarez and (to a lesser extent) what Real Madrid did with James Rodriguez.
And that’s where Kevin De Bruyne comes in for the Citizens. A marvelously intelligent player capable of playing anywhere along the three-pronged attacking midfield that Manuel Pelligrini prefers, he offers a different kind of guile to the sinuous craft of David Silva; two different styles that is, as we saw against Newcastle, not conflicting in the least.
Unlike the Spaniard, who can be intimidated and shut down with a brute physical approach, De Bruyne is harder to contain simply because he can revert to unadulterated, direct aggression if pure skill doesn’t work. While not the fastest, he has it in him to pull out a burst of untouchable acceleration when it is most needed.
And, by God, can he control a football. His technique was never in doubt; these days he brings with him a self-belief that makes all that on-the-ball ability a deadly skill. He is an excellent, consistent, set piece taker (as he showed with Belgium over the weekend) and his finishing is on a level that even Agüero would be proud of.
That £55 million is starting to look like a bargain.
The first few games of the season has augured well for City, and De Bruyne has combined brilliantly with Sergio Agüero, and naturally complementing Raheem Sterling and David Silva – as three goals and two assists in four games has shown. Every time he gets on the ball – and even with Silva in the team, he gets the ball a lot – City look dangerous; like a team that have more than a few goals in them.
Till last season, Manchester City had what it takes to get a result on a cold blustery Tuesday night in Stoke. But now, with Kevin De Bruyne in their ranks, they may well finally have it in them to get what they want on a warm, breezy, Wednesday night at the Camp Nou.
