Kevin De Bruyne 2016/17

[Silva_Spell]

Ridiculous that he has won POTM again.

 

[KDBestplayerintheworld]

Navas gives us a much better balance with sterling on the other side,team dynamics is not only about talent

Although I understand your point I would much rather try to poulish an incredibly gifted footballer (De Bruyne) into fitting into the team than replace him by a mediocre player (Navas) who just happens to fit the structure and who you know will never provide more than 4 goals and 5 assists a season. You would have to admit, Karen, that those kind of numbers for an attacking players are just nog good enough?

Anyway, I think it's way too early to give up on De Bruyne the way some seem to be doing, definitely if you consider he already has double numbers for goals and assists in spite of apparently playing like an arse to some people's (well entitled) opinion.

 

[schfc6]

It's not simply "wrong" it's a difference of opinion. I don't think De Bruyne is inconsistent nor do I think that giving the ball away once every four passes as opposed to once every five passes is a huge difference in ball retention. Especially when that difference in % is more than made up for via the chances created stat.

I can see that you're not only not going to agree to disagree but you think my POV is daft. Fair enough. We can revisit at the end of the season when we have a better pool of data for KDB.

Fair enough. I would say though that 77% is really quiet low, it's the lowest in our squad, Hart aside. And the difference between 77% and 86% is quiet stark at Premier league level.

We all know Silva isn't necessarily about chances created, but how many times are he or Ya Ya for that matter provide the pass before the assist? I would guess(as there are now stats for this) that a good percentage of chances De Bruyne creates are on the back of a Silva pass.

 

[KDBestplayerintheworld]

Don't think you'll find a single City fan that doesn't prefer De Bruyne to Navas when it comes to talent. De Bruyne is miles ahead. However the team seems miles better when he's not in it. It's that simple at the moment. Our best performances have come in Kev's absence a couple of games where we've demolished utter dross aside.

If City have the ambition to become one of Europe's elite, and I believe they do, then they have no other option but to try and make their best players connect. That job is up to the manager, and if Pellers can't do it, I'm sure Pep will next season.
You just can't settle for mediocricy (Navas) because the team is better used to it ... that's change management for me.

 

[Shaelumstash]

They are not stats but facts. The reason why I gave them was because you were saying he struggles against packed defences.

When did I say he has played as a playmaker for us? He has switched in a couple of games, but started usually in the wide areas. What I am disagreeing with you, is that I believe he is a playmaker. This IMO is his best position and he should rotate with Silva, which would keep both players fresh.

Where he has struggled is away from home. You started this thread by asking if he could still command a place in the starting 11. At home I would say yes, but away from home no.

I'm not sure if you understand what a stat is? A stat is a fact that represents a collection of data for example, a collection of assists.

Ok, so you're saying he is a playmaker, and that is his best position. But you're also saying he hasn't played there for us. So on what are you basing your opinion about his best position?

If it is his performances for Wolfsburg, I can only refer to my earlier posts. Wolfsburg were a supreme counter attacking team. De Bruyne was expert at exploiting space behind defences that have pushed up. Unfortunately City don't play against many teams that push high up against us, so it negates his "playmaking" style.

Your counter argument to that is that he's been much better at home. I agree he has, but you're missing something crucial here.

His good performances at home have come when he isn't playing as a playmaker. His good performances have come when he's been playing wide and Silva has been playing as the playmaker. That's where his excellent stats / facts as you call them have come from. Wide. Newcastle and Sunderland, two big wins, De Bruyne's 2 best performances, when he's been wide.

His worst performances - first 25 against Newcastle, the whole game against Everton - he was playing as the playmaker. Bad stats, bad facts, bad performance.

The strange irony of this thread is that the same people who argue that De Bruyne should play centrally are the ones who use his assist and goal stats as crucial evidence to back up their point. What they fail to realise, is that in a Manchester City shirt, his impressive stats have come from him playing wide. Even more absurd, his best performances have come when David Silva has been playing centrally, and he's the guy these people want to drop for him! You really couldn't make it up. Only on Bluemoon, and only when the usual Wums are involved.

 

[kaz7]

Although I understand your point I would much rather try to poulish an incredibly gifted footballer (De Bruyne) into fitting into the team than replace him by a mediocre player (Navas) who just happens to fit the structure and who you know will never provide more than 4 goals and 5 assists a season. You would have to admit, Karen, that those kind of numbers for an attacking players are just nog good enough?

Anyway, I think it's way too early to give up on De Bruyne the way some seem to be doing, definitely if you consider he already has double numbers for goals and assists in spite of apparently playing like an arse to some people's (well entitled) opinion.

No-one is giving up on him,sometimes what is best for the team comes before stats,pep will do things better and we can then see how they all fit together,right now no-one has the god given right to play except sergio

 

[Dax777]

Whilst that's a nice post on paper. Fact remains, Silva and De Bruyne were swapped. We went from one down to 5-1 in just over half an hour. In your very own words, the swap was for the benefit of the team.

Yes, but let's be clear here, no one knows why the swap was made. My guess, and the more likely reason was that Silva was poor defensively on the wing supporting Zab.

Shael has disingenuously wrapped claiming 'City not playing well in the 1st 25 minutes' with' DeBryune being 'diabolical' in that period ( I.E. implying he was constantly losing us possession in that area) and thus Manuel made the switch. This is how false narratives get started and before you know it. Everyone buys into the the falsehood.

Yet, DeBryune was better than Silva in the 1st 25 minutes, Silva was partly at fault for both chances created by NCs left side, and the eventual goal.

Offensively, DeBryune created more chances than Silva in the 1st 25 minutes, lost possession fewer times. And started more attacks.

For anyone to conclude DeBryune was 'diabolical' in those 25 minutes, is frankly ridiculous.

Now that I have gone all 'fact check' on him, he suddenly doesn't want to read anymore. And would rather rest on his recollection from months ago and what the folks around him said. Lol

I am really trying not to argue so much here, few folks have opined about me always correcting others and seem to always be looking for an argument. So I want to argue less, and respond mostly to just folks I agree with a comment they make.

But blatantly false opinions like Shael makes it really hard.

 

[Silva_Spell]

Home:

Toure Dinho
Silva + De Bruyne + Sterling or Navas or Iheanacho
Aguero


Away:​

Toure Dinho
Navas Silva Sterling
Aguero


In certain games

Dinho
Toure Delph
Silva or Navas----Aguero----Sterling or KDB​

 

[schfc6]

If City have the ambition to become one of Europe's elite, and I believe they do, then they have no other option but to try and make their best players connect. That job is up to the manager, and if Pellers can't do it, I'm sure Pep will next season.
You just can't settle for mediocricy (Navas) because the team is better used to it ... that's change management for me.

Whilst again, I don't disagree with you, we have 4 months of a season left, one that could be incredibly successful or a total waste of time. Either or, Pellegrini is gone.

For me, he needs to get the best out of this squad now. If the best performances come without Kev, Dave, Ya Ya or Clichy I don't care.
You are right, De Bruyne is certainly a wonderful talent and even if he's not used as much, or not used centrally I'm positive he will still and has contributed plenty.

I don't think fans want him out of the side, far from it. It's just being asked is he a 'first name on the team sheet' player currently. For me no. If we're looking for magic, is he first off the bench? Certainly.

As I say only Hart, Fernandinho and Aguero currently demand a start and I appreiciate that some feel Silva is and some feel De Bruyne is, many feel both are. For me, both are better than their counterparts, but the team is more important than any player..

As for Navas, in my humble opinion he is very under rated by the fans. He is a player clearly trusted by the rest of the squad. If Dave, Kev, Zaba and Ya Ya trust him, then I do too.

 

[teddykgb]

I think you're spot on Dax. There's a lot of nonsense being talked about KDB in this thread and tons of correlation == causality errors as well. It really pains me that the season he's had to this point is somehow not good enough and I think more than one person needs to have a serious think about where we'd be right now without him in the squad.

The entire discussion misses the forest for the trees anyway. Our problems are not any individual player. I've been meaning to write up a probably far too wordy post about our usage of space in the attacking third but the bottom line is that we typically waste at least 2 nominally attack contributed players in our build up and attacks and it's making all of our creative players suffer. The reason why we looked so good with Ihenacho on the pitch the other day is that we finally had a player between the lines when Silva came to pick the ball up deep. I love David an unhealthy amount but he drifts so much and so deep to get on the ball that there isn't much of a forward pass available to him or the player he passes to when he gets on the ball. He's so damn good that it still often works out but our issues right now, to the extent they exist, are in my opinion about more spatial discipline and layers than they are about the pass completion percentages of any one player.

We tend to look better with Navas and Sterling on the pitch because they are always available in wide areas and thus there's more likely to be an open pass. If the goal of football were to rack up possession numbers then it'd be a great tactic but on the whole I think the possession we get in that formation flatters to deceive. We could spend many matches taking the wide space teams are happy to cede to Navas and let him pump in 36 attempted crosses that seldom have much more than the faint scent of danger in them but it's probably far more important that our attacking players find the appropriate relative positions to allow us to reliable build attacks. KDB is a part of that solution, not the problem.