In an exclusive interview with Football FanCast, Rob Lee, who made 280 Premier League appearances, believes Kevin De Bruyne is as good as anyone else in the world at the moment.
Last season’s Premier League Player of the Year had been out for a number of weeks which coincided with Man City continuing to impress and breezing past teams with ease on a 21-match winning run.
De Bruyne’s quality on the ball is unquestionable, but with City going from having an almost unbeatable solid defence to keeping one clean sheet in the Belgian’s starts since returning from injury, it has raised a few questions.
Who should start for Man City?
De Bruyne!
Silva!
A story was published in The Athletic which looked at De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva and how both have performed in that role of controlling the game for Pep Guardiola’s side.
However, Lee believes there is no chance that Pep drops the man he has built the City team around and has carried them through so many games.
“No way,” was Lee’s response to FFC when asked if he could see De Bruyne being benched.
He added: “De Bruyne is on a par with anybody in the world at this moment in time, he’s as good as anybody. I genuinely mean that, he’s as effective as Ronaldo and Messi.
“They’re a much better team when De Bruyne plays. He seems to be all over the park. He scores and creates more goals than anybody else.
“When he gets the ball you think he’s gonna do something whether he’s 18 yards from goal or whether he’s 10 yards from goal. He’s deceptively quick as well.”
Even when City look sluggish and off the pace, De Bruyne is able to create something out of nothing, which makes City even more terrifying for other teams.
The Belgian seems to be integral to everything Pep wants to do at City, so to drop his main man would be ludicrous to most people.