Kevin De Bruyne hasn’t featured for half the 2023/24 season, but two very impressive statistics have emerged about the Manchester City star regardless.
De Bruyne got injured in the very first Premier League game of the season against Burnley, hobbling off in the first-half.
He had sustained a serious hamstring injury, and for City fans it was a familiar sight seeing him going off in the first-half of a game. The same, of course, had happened in the Champions League final against Inter.
De Bruyne had surgery, and was then out for around four months before making his return to action in January.
Despite really limited game time, De Bruyne has still scored six goals and laid on 17 assists this season – and now, a genuinely brilliant statistic has emerged…
Man City star Kevin De Bruyne is the highest-rated over-30 player in Europe
City managed pretty well in De Bruyne’s absence.
He is amazingly creative as we all know. But Phil Foden moved centrally for a lot of the time he was out, and the England international has been just devastating this season.
He’s enjoyed his best campaign to date, and appears to be the natural long-term successor to the Belgian in the middle.
But De Bruyne has still been wonderful when he’s played this season, and WhoScored actually have him as the highest-rated over-30 player across the top five leagues in Europe.
He has a rating of 7.60, putting him ahead of Isco (7.44) and Heung-min Son (7.30).
Furthermore, De Bruyne has the fewest minutes per assist (118.6) of any player in Europe’s top five leagues to have played over 1000 minutes.
King Kev still hugely influential
De Bruyne may have been missing for half the 2023/24 season, but these statistics clearly show he has still been very influential for City.
Yes, he’s had a couple of games where he hasn’t been very impactful, like against Arsenal and Liverpool back in March.
But for the most part, the star has been devastating for City when he has taken to the field, and it’s been brilliant to see he hasn’t appeared to be affected by his serious injury.
We will see what happens with him in the summer, given there has been interest from Saudi Arabia. But clearly he still has plenty left in the tank and the majority of City fans will certainly hope he stays put.
