He's not as good as Silva now, and way off what YaYa was.
He's a great player, so he should be. There are several players though who have similar price tags and more importantly standing in the game that have out performed De Bruyne for our rivals.
As I've said, Txiki has done some fantastic work, but he & his department have overseen a pretty poor last few years in terms of squad enhancement.
Our squad undoubtedly lacks balance in both age and positionally.
If we stick with De Bruyne, a player we both agree is fantastic, then I'll ask you this.
Why is his form so patchy?
For me, it's because two managers in a row have had to constantly move him positionally because his favoured position, the position he played in, the position we bought him based on does not exist in our squad. He's constantly moved around as is Silva in order to accommodate for our alarming lack of squad balance.
So the problems with our squad are hindering our brightest talents.
A lack of quality centre mids and frankly woeful full back options are making Stones look like David Brightwell at times.
Otamendi looks ok when Sagna is next to him at right back, not so much when Zabaleta is there. Poor old Stones is left hung out to dry.
Sterling, De Bruyne, Silva & Sane have all been asked to do a job on the left. Non of them do well there and it nullifies their talents.
Our squad is simply unbalanced. It lacks pace & tenacity, it seems to lack hunger, top class players are playing out of position every week.
We play Spurs In a few hours, we all know we simply can't match them physically.
We are relying on our manager to come up with some fantastic tactical master plan to have any hope of a victory.
They've run us off the park once, most fans are not confident of winning.
Txiki has overseen a far far far greater net spend than our rivals today, we have the best manager in the World and yet we are all shitting it.
Does that not say it all?
KDB shits all over Silva's and Toure's contribution since he's been here.
You're right that the constant shifting of KDB's position is harmful, but that's Pep's fault for trying to fit Silva/Yaya/Gundogan in the team when the midfield should be built around what will make KDB most effective in that particular game. The balance is bad because Pep wants to put his favourites in, nothing more imo.
Games KDB has changed the result of:
2-1 v Arsenal, assist for Sterling for winning goal.
2-0 v Watford, assist to Zaba for opening goal.
1-1 v Gladbach, assist for Silva's equaliser.
2-1 v Palace, assist for Yaya's winner.
1-1 v Boro, assist for Aguero's opening goal.
3-1 v Barca, scored the goal that gave us the lead.
3-1 v Swansea, won the penalty to take us to 2-1, then set Sterling up for 3-1.
2-1 v United, scored the opener, shot hit post for Kelechi to tap in the 2nd.
2-2 v Arsenal, made it 2-1.
1-0 v PSG, scored the winner.
2-2 v PSG, scored the opener.
3-1 v Everton, Scored for 2-1 and set up Kun for 3-1 to take us to Wembley.
4-1 v Sunderland, set up the 1st, 3rd and scored the 4th.
3-1 v Southampton, scored the opener, set up the 2nd & 3rd.
2-1 v Norwich, set up opening goal.
2-1 v Sevilla, scored the winner.
that's just games where it was a game changing goal or assist. Essentially won us Arsenal (H), Barca (H), United (A), PSG (h) & Everton (H) in the semi and Sevilla (A).
What a miserable 18 months we'd have had without him. When you make that level of contribution, you're worth every penny regardless of inconsistency.
Players with similar price tags:
-Martial, ha.
-Di Maria, ha, ha.
-Luiz, ha, ha, ha.
-Cavani ha, ha, ha, ha.
-Oscar ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
-Kaka etc.
-James etc. etc.
Or did you mean Torres back in the day, or Hulk, or Alex Teixeira? because Suarez, Neymar, Ronaldo, Bale cost a lot more. Even Ozil at a bit less can't be considered in the same bracket of making an impact, he goes missing in the precise environment De Bruyne comes alive.
