18 assists and counting
Is Kevin De Bruyne the best playmaker the Premier League has ever seen?
©Imago/Content stadium
Manchester City confidently regained control of the Premier League title race on Wednesday night, when they demolished a once-emboldened Arsenal side 4-1 at the Etihad Stadium to go within two points of their London rivals with two games in hand. The result now all but confirms a fifth league title in six seasons for Pep Guardiola’s side and it was undoubtedly exemplified through a remarkable performance from midfielder Kevin De Bruyne.
Stats
K. De Bruyne
Attacking Midfield
Manchester City
Season 22/23–
Premier League
Games
32
Goals
7
Assists
16
It took the Belgian playmaker-in-chief just seven minutes to break through Arsenal’s defence, when a handy through ball from Erling Haaland played De Bruyne towards the opposing box, only for the midfielder to slot home a wonderful right-footed finish with time and space to spare. Then, following a second goal from John Stones before half-time, De Bruyne doubled his tally for the night and confirmed all three points with a wonderfully-placed finish just eight minutes into the second half.
That performance now puts De Bruyne on seven goals and an incredible 18 assists in just 29 league games for Man City this season. And as the club march towards another league title, there’s a growing sense that now only has this campaign been one of De Bruyne’s best but also further confirmation that the Belgium international may end up being one of the best playmakers to ever grace the Premier League.
In a league of his own since 2015
De Bruyne made the move to Man City in August 2015, when he joined the club from Wolfsburg for a hefty fee of €76 million. That transfer still stands as the club’s second highest of all time, dropping below Jack Grealish’s €117.5m move to the club in 2021. But there’s no doubt that the Etihad club have made their money back and then some due to De Bruyne’s remarkable record in the English top-flight since then.
Indeed, as the graphic above shows, since donning the light blue of Man City in 2015, De Bruyne has bagged a remarkable 105 assists in 239 games in the Premier League. And, as we can see, that’s almost twice as many as the next best playmakers in the division in that period of time, with Christian Eriksen and Mohamed Salah coming in at 64 and 57 assists respectively. In other words, there really has been no comparison or genuine rival to De Bruyne’ claim to being the best playmaker in English football over the course of the past eight seasons.
Is De Bruyne the best Premier League playmaker ever?
Of course, the Premier League has been home to some of the best attacking midfielders to ever play football and as such De Bruyne would have to beat the very best to lay claim to being the best playmaker in the history of the league. But when we look at which players have created the most assists since the league began in 1993, the Man City star certainly compares very favourably.
Although the Belgian midfielder hasn’t yet broken into the top five, we can see that he’s only one assist off equalling David Silva’s record at Man City and could finish this season matching or surpassing Frank Lampard’s 114 Premier League assists. Whether he can catch Ryan Giggs’ career assists in the division seems like a tall task, but as we can see the Manchester United star had also played nearly three times as many games in the English top-flight.
However, considering De Bruyne’s age and current ability, there’s no reason why he can’t pick up at least another 20 assists before he decides to finally hang up his boots. Which would then move him into second place, ahead of Premier League greats like Arsenal’s Cesc Fàbregas and Man Utd forward Wayne Rooney. Which would be a truly impressive feat for a player that was once deemed not good enough for Chelsea.