Neil Humphreys: De Bruyne is bad news for Man City’s rivals
Belgian midfielder finds form when the Blues didn't even need him
By his own admission, Kevin de Bruyne continues to toil in his own shadow. His weary body struggles to replicate his peerless form of last season.
And yet, he was the best Manchester City player against Cardiff City yesterday morning (Singapore time). It wasn't even close.
There was de Bruyne and the also-rans, which might make a quirky name for a Europop band, but makes for grim reading for City's rivals.
The half-fit Belgian surpassed the efforts of a fully charged machine capable of playing a sledgehammer to any fly that happens to pass by the Etihad Stadium.
City have just rediscovered the most complete midfielder in European football, even though they didn't particularly need him.
That's terrifying.
The billionaires' club face Brighton and Hove Albion on Sunday in phase two of their mission to win the hearts and minds of those devoted to teams in red. Their FA Cup semi-final beckons.
The League Cup is already in the bag. The English Premier League title should be next, barring an unlikely collapse, with the Champions League being seen as the jug-earred cherry on the gluttonous cake.
And where was de Bruyne in all of this? He was out of sight and out of mind, unhealthy and mostly unnecessary. The finest of his generation was reduced to a luxury item.
At Liverpool, Xherdan Shaqiri was signed as Juergen Klopp's luxury item, a smiley maverick that might be called upon to fool around with tiring fullbacks in tense contests.
But the Swiss midfielder has barely featured this year, with Shaqiri's reluctance to defend and his predictability clearly seen as risks not worth taking in close contests that Liverpool are labouring to win.
Pep Guardiola, on the other hand, can behave like the Kardashians on a red carpet, swopping and showing off his vast collection of prized trinkets simply because he can.
Against Cardiff, he made seven changes, giving Sergio Aguero, Raheem Sterling and his two Silvas the night off and pairing a rusty maestro with a kid still waiting for puberty to catch up with his potential.
STILL GROWING
Phil Foden is 18 and waiting for parts of his anatomy to grow and develop more hair before he'll be taken seriously inside a pub, let alone the Etihad.
But de Bruyne guided him through central midfield, very much Obi-Wan Kenobi to Foden's Luke Skywalker.
Even then, the simplistic wise old wizard analogy does a disservice to de Bruyne's energy and urgency. He played as if driven by a rage from within. He's making up for lost time.
Three injuries have stalled a campaign that never really began or ended. Two seasons merged into one with the World Cup bridging the two.
De Bruyne's campaign didn't start yesterday because it never actually stopped, a point forcibly made with a scowl in a post-match interview.
When asked if his Man-of-the-Match efforts constituted a "comeback" of sorts, the Belgian was visibly irritated.
He didn't really go anywhere. He played 52 games last season, knocked in 12 goals and orchestrated a remarkable 21 assists, but he was rarely rested. His body broke down in protest.
So he's been half the player this time around, in every sense, managing only 25 games in all competitions, five goals and four assists, but City are almost twice the club now.
They are no longer dependent on their talisman, which is a credit to Guardiola, but an indictment of English football's ever growing divide.
Chelsea without Eden Hazard - or a focused Hazard - means an inevitable slide down the table (it has already happened... twice).
Liverpool without Virgil van Dijk would be the Liverpool of last season (i.e. a defensive mess with fewer points for the whole campaign than they already have).
But City without de Bruyne barely registered. He was missed, obviously, but only in the way that a popular violinist might be missed in the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.
Purists lament the absence, but the band plays on.
And now, brilliantly, worryingly, he's back.
Against Cardiff, his incomparable distribution ensured an 88 per cent passing accuracy. His 18 crosses were the highest in the match, as were his six created chances.
He also smashed in City's opener.
He evaded markers, threaded passes through gaps that eluded the naked eye, berated teammates and dominated proceedings from first whistle to last.
That's some luxury item.
And the truly scary thing is City could probably lift the title without de Bruyne.
But with him, they could conceivably win the Quadruple.
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