The best football we’ve played in this, and for a few games perhaps, any other season was when Kev was sidelined. The almost mythical concept of total football was there before our eyes in sky blue. I don’t know if it’s a tactical thing or if the other key players feel slightly inhibited and less likely to express themselves when Kev is playing but since he’s been back we haven’t hit those heights again. His individual contribution after the first two or three dodgy games of his return has been fine and there have been moments of top class but we arent as fluent as we were without him. Coincidence maybe but I wouldn’t pick him tonight.
It's kind of like the striker debate. What do you want? A striker that scores goals galore even if at the expense of the team's full potential (not saying they'd hinder the team, just hold it back from it's peak), or a striker that isn't amongst the best statistically but benefits the team beyond others?
With De Bruyne, you have a guy that is insanely gifting at creating opportunities in a multitude of ways and also is a strong scorer. But it's been seen that with Bernardo in that position, there's generally a bit more fluidity.
In theory, you'd prefer the players that bring the most out of the team. However, most theory falls apart when you realise the game is won and lost on goals. Normally you can sacrifice individual talent over team potential, but at the level City play at, any player who's getting in on talent alone is going to be world class. De Bruyne's numbers are elite. Every game he plays in, good or bad, he's likely to pop up with multiple goal creating contributions. Individually, he contributes more than the whole team without him on this front, so it's worth the sacrifice. At least sometimes.
It would be the same with a striker. It's important we have a forward that makes everything tick for us. But, if we could have a striker that's guaranteed a goal a game, then all of a sudden it might just be worth sacrificing that fluidity.
A less obvious example would be with Dias. On paper Laporte and Stones is still our best CB partnership if we're thinking about how the team plays as a whole. You have a left and right foot combination. You have two big defenders who at their best are both superb at defending. You have two of the best CBs at playing the possession game in the world. They're both better than Dias at defending high up the pitch when they're on it.
But Dias is just a better defender overall. Not only that, but he makes others around him defend better. And his mentality is superb, and it rubs off onto others. He's not anywhere the level of the other two in possession really, but the team is better with him in it just because he is better at preventing goals conceded, just like De Bruyne is better at ensuring goals are scored. The fluidity is sacrificed for the goals.
It's a difficult balancing act, because too many of these players and all of a sudden the cohesion is gone, and it's not a Pep team. But having 3 or 4 of them available in whatever position you can think of can be huge difference makers.
Unfortunately it's very rare to have players who can both be world class difference makers statistically (in the goals columns) and true system players at the same time. For Pep teams I can only think of Messi and Neuer. So you have to "struggle" with the mix of perfect system players and world class difference makers.
