Manchester City: Kevin De Bruyne was already brilliant but is suddenly getting even better

De Bruyne created 105 chances in 2017-18. At this rate, he'll have matched that by January

Back in 2017-18, while vying for the various annual player of the year awards, Kevin De Bruyne created a league-high 105 chances. He played in all but one of Manchester City’s 38 games that year. He was the outstanding player on the best team in Premier League history. This season, though, he has already created 27 goal-scoring opportunities for his team-mates. At this rate, he will have matched his tally of two years ago by January.

It has, by any measure, been an extraordinary individual start to the new season. Compare De Bruyne’s output so far with that of other leading creative midfielders. Christian Eriksen and Paul Pogba have fashioned 10 and 11 chances respectively, with mitigating circumstances in their favour. James Maddison also has 11, Joao Moutinho and Mason Mount have 12. Gylfi Sigurdsson, Manuel Lanzini, Pascal Gross and – curiously – Riyad Mahrez are tied-second in the rankings with 15. De Bruyne, leading the way, has 27.

There’s more: seven assists puts him three clear of his closest competitors, David Silva and Emiliano Beundia. And according to the underlying models, his expected assists is roughly double the next best player. In Saturday’s 8-0 evisceration of Watford alone, De Bruyne scored one, assisted two and had an influential hand in two more. “He was quite good, yeah?” Pep Guardiola conceded in his post-match press conference.

The first assist – for Silva to open the scoring after just 52 seconds – was arguably De Bruyne’s finest contribution of the afternoon, and a typical example of how he is asking his opponents questions to which there are no correct answers. Taking up a space in the inside-right channel, he released a low, flat pass arced across the face of Watford’s back line, which both tempts and deters an opponents from taking any sort of touch.

The ball was only ever a yard or so in front of the defenders. It was there to intercept, but was at enough of a distance and travelling with enough pace to make any moment’s hesitation fatal. This is hardly a new concept. It is the ‘corridor of uncertainty’. But De Bruyne is now finding this area with regularity. His second assist of the day – for City’s seventh – and both of his assists against Tottenham last month posed the same problems.

It is not only his delivery, either. His positioning for that first goal – tucked inside from the right, between the lines of the opposition’s defence and midfield – dares opponents to step up and press. If they do, he can release an overlapping full-back to his right or perhaps slip the ball further inside. If they don’t, he can play exactly the type of cross which Silva – or Raheem Sterling, for the first against Tottenham – will convert. De Bruyne makes you choose and choose badly. The only good option is not to be playing against him at all.

“Listen, Kevin sometimes is a special player,” Guardiola said on Saturday night. “Sometimes he sees something the other guys cannot see on the pitch, not even off [it].” That preternatural awareness of his surroundings was always there, though. De Bruyne also now looks broader, muscular, more powerful than before, and is perhaps also determined to make up for lost time after missing much of last season through injury.

Curiously, Guardiola believes De Bruyne is a better player when not taking out this frustration on opponents. “Only [thing] with Kevin, sometimes it depends on his mood. Sometimes he is a little bit [angry], when he is a little bit ‘not happy’ in that way.” But whatever mood he is in, and however successful City were without him, Guardiola would rather have De Bruyne on the pitch than the sidelines. “We knew we missed him a lot,” he said. “We did an incredible season, winning four titles, but we miss him last season a lot because he is a special player.”

And though the champions remain five points behind Liverpool, De Bruyne’s return – and his apparent improvement – has to be a concern for the pretenders to the throne. City have a player who has created twice as much as any of his contemporaries, who is already halfway towards equalling Thierry Henry’s record for most assists in a single Premier League season, and who is now, surely, the best in the country. And most menacingly of all, Kevin De Bruyne is only getting better.