Kevin De Bruyne

what more can you say? He's a very, very special player.
One of the best the PL has ever seen.
I think he's better than Scholes, which by definition makes him better than Lampard and Gerrard ;)

would have hurt much more to watch his performances in a Liverpool or Arsenal shirt, mind.
Ditto for Pep winning everything under the sun. United fans should feel a tiny bit lucky.
 
Quietly gets on with it and more often than not delivers

Pure world class
 
One of the greats of the PL, an absolute legend for club and country. The only debate left is Scholes or DeBruyne and one could reasonably go either way on that.
 
lex talionis said:
One of the greats of the PL, an absolute legend for club and country. The only debate left is Scholes or DeBruyne and one could reasonably go either way on that.
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Scholes was a wonderful player but I think this is only a debate in the eyes of united fans.
 
lex talionis said:
One of the greats of the PL, an absolute legend for club and country. The only debate left is Scholes or DeBruyne and one could reasonably go either way on that.
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I adore Scholes, he's my favourite ever player - but this really isn't a debate anymore.
 
FrankWhite said:
Scholes was a wonderful player but I think this is only a debate in the eyes of united fans.
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That's probably true, although I think Xavi or Iniesta opined on Scholesey's greatness, but objectively Scholes was incredible. What drags him down in the eyes of many is how little impact he had at the international level and that's entirely due to the mismanagement of the England national team at the time. I'm sure this has been thoroughly discussed here already, but Lampard and Gerrard just had to be squeezed in to keep the British media happy, so Scholes got squeezed out. And there is no serious argument that Lampard or Gerrard were superior to Scholes.
 
Yeah he's better than Scholesy for me, hard as it is to say. He's got more to his all-round game and is equal as a playmaker.
 
I know it's an United forum, but...how the hell was Scholes better than De Bruyne? Really, I can't even start to conceive this idea. Sounds almost like saying that Xavi was better than Messi(yeah, I exaggerated a bit).

De Bruyne is not much worse than Scholes at controlling the tempo, whilst a better passer and much more a driving force in attack.
 
I've always thought of Scholes, Lampard, and Gerrard as the top midfielders of the PL era.
KdB is clearly better than all three in nearly every aspect of midfield play.
KdB>>Scholes=Lampard>Gerrard
 
Fooza said:
Maybe Bruno will turn into him one day

.... in another parallel universe
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Yeah proves Bruno is not in his league,I hate we didn't have a proper recruitment team when he was available in 2015. Stings it's yet another one we have missed out on due to that reason.
 
He's better than Haaland. For all the focus on his goals, KDB is more important to City and a better player.
 
Impressive that he can be out that long and come straight back with a performance at that level in a big intense away game.
lex talionis said:
That's probably true, although I think Xavi or Iniesta opined on Scholesey's greatness, but objectively Scholes was incredible. What drags him down in the eyes of many is how little impact he had at the international level and that's entirely due to the mismanagement of the England national team at the time. I'm sure this has been thoroughly discussed here already, but Lampard and Gerrard just had to be squeezed in to keep the British media happy, so Scholes got squeezed out. And there is no serious argument that Lampard or Gerrard were superior to Scholes.
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You can level the underperforming at international level argument at KdB and that generation of Belgians as much as you can Scholes and the squads he was in.
 
For me Scholes played brilliantly from a younger age, and was consistently good in a tougher period of the Premier League. Not in a Citeh cheat code team that dominates.

KdB is a class player though, absolutely up there with the best of the Premier League.

Just my opinion though.
 
Massive Spanner said:
I’ve never seen a player pass the ball with such precision so often. It’s ridiculous. He’s an outrageous player. Cnut.
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For me it's not just the precision, the pass for the goal was just beautiful.

It's just the way he plays passes that the ball so the receiver doesn't even have to think about what to do or how to interact with the ball, header, volley, hit it first time, take a touch etc.. his pass dictates their options. That is a quality that not many players have ever possessed.
 
Scholes was my favourite player but hard to say what he was better at. Maybe better at slowing a game down from deeper areas when he was older at a push. De Bruyne has all the best of Scholes and then higher workrate, better dribbler, more driving through midfield at pace, better crosses and set pieces.
 
Of course Scholes is better.

We should be focusing on the real debate, which is who is better between Rashford and Mbappe.
 
Oranges038 said:
For me it's not just the precision, the pass for the goal was just beautiful.

It's just the way he plays passes that the ball so the receiver doesn't even have to think about what to do or how to interact with the ball, header, volley, hit it first time, take a touch etc.. his pass dictates their options. That is a quality that not many players have ever possessed.
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True, and this just invites positive off the ball movement all around and in front of him. It's not easy to quantify this ability with the use of stats. Also, people talk about the pass, but what about the equalizer? He basically... passed the ball into the back of the net.

In terms of pure individual talent, i feel it's not even a contest between him and Scholes (or, as someone mentioned a few posts above, it can be, but only on a United forum). And that's not a slight on Scholes, by any stretch. For me, the toughest pill to swallow is that, into his 30s, KdB's going to enjoy the glorious "second half" of his career that Beckham should also have got if his focus had not shifted toward his other non-football related pursuits. I'm saying this as someone who believes that the talent Beckham possessed was head and shoulders above everyone else at United back then.

Also, just think that, at some point, City had KdB, Rodri, Gundogan, Bernardo Silva and David Silva to play in their midfield while we're still discussing if there's any use for McTominay or whether we should have sold Fred or not... A sign of the times, one could argue.
 
Shane88 said:
Probably blasphemy to some but in my opinion, he's well surpassed the likes of Keane, Viera, Gerrard, Lampard, Scholes etc in those greatest PL midfielder ever lists/polls.
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Unless you are a fan of the team for which one of those players played for, I honestly don’t see how it can be blasphemy. Dominating the PL for years. Record in UCL and in the NT not as great but still.
 
Don't understand the rush to compare him to Scholes.

In all 3 phases of Scholes' career he and De Bruyne aren't alike. In fact, they would field in the same xi no matter the iteration of Scholes referred to.
 
Fortitude said:
Don't understand the rush to compare him to Scholes.

In all 3 phases of Scholes' career he and De Bruyne aren't alike. In fact, they would field in the same xi no matter the iteration of Scholes referred to.
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It’s an odd comparison, Gerrard is probably a closer comparison to him.
 
Shane88 said:
Probably blasphemy to some but in my opinion, he's well surpassed the likes of Keane, Viera, Gerrard, Lampard, Scholes etc in those greatest PL midfielder ever lists/polls.
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Club bias and English bias will get in the way of some of those narratives though.
 
adexkola said:
Elevated by Pep's system, doesn't look as great outside of it

(Or whatever nonsense usually gets said about City players)
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I remember that argument being made. While he hasn't always been particularly great for Belgium, one of his best ever seasons was 30 G/A in the Bundesliga with Wolfsburg.
 
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