Not at their best, not in their usual scintillating, relentless form, not quite playing with the belief and aura of inevitability that scoring the first game’s goal means the win is all but theirs. Manchester City might be aiming now to be crowned the planet’s finest at the Club World Cup, but Pep Guardiola will know all the same that to make it four Premier League titles in a row, they’ll have to be much-improved in consistency terms across the second half of the campaign.
And yet, there’s a single huge reason to feel that’s likely to be the case: the return of Kevin de Bruyne.
A total of 80 minutes is all Man City have been able to call upon their opening-day captain for this term, the bulk of those coming off the bench in the Community Shield. His sole league run-out ended after just 23 minutes, surgery needed on a hamstring tear which has so far sidelined him for four months - though he’s now finally back out on the grass doing some training.
City are hardly in a position of desperation to get him back. The remaining rotating cast of attacking options would be good enough for most teams, especially considering the goalscoring antics of Erling Haaland, but the treble-winners of last season can only hope to match their own standards by near-perfection, and that requires the presence of the very best whenever possible.
De Bruyne, of course, very much fits that category - and even after his long-term layoff, still harbours not just the ambitions, but the expectations, of improving himself even further.
“I want to be the best. It just doesn’t stop [wanting to be best]. I want to be in the best team, I want to be the best player in the world. I still have motivation every day,” he said as his comeback nears. “Even being out for four months, I have tried to find ways to change myself as a player so I can still do what I did before. I am certain I will be fine once I am back on the pitch.”
Having described his “serious injury” as being like repairing a car after his hamstring was left similar to a “wet kitchen towel”, the Belgian will hope that a thorough maintenance programme leaves him not just ready to return, but to excel once full fitness is attained. And while it’s likely that he’ll need a while to find top gear after such an absence, it’s also not too much of a stretch to imagine him having a telling impact for his team, improving them significantly through spring - and towards the trophy-winning time of the season.
City’s issues with losing the lead and failing to see out games have not just been what might be termed defensive concerns; individuals in the back line are naturally a part of it but there’s very much been a case of drifting possession at times, an inability to set themselves up properly to negate counter threats and, maybe most pertinently, kill opponents off when already ahead.
De Bruyne is naturally not exactly a last line of defence, but he helps out on the defensive side in two particular ways: one, he significantly aids Man City’s attacking and build-up phases, thereby seeing them keep the ball for longer and in better areas, well away from any danger zones towards their own goal, and two, his mere presence - one of the game’s true great creators - naturally leaves opponents more reticent to over-commit, more likely to leave an extra defensive option in place.
For much of 2023/24, the big development in City’s gameplan has been to fill the void left by De Bruyne with Julian Alvarez, effectively playing as a roaming second forward, the Argentine’s Premier League gametime already within 40 minutes this term of his entire 2022/23 tally.
While an excellent foil for Erling Haaland and a classy operator in his own right, his mix of aggression and nuance nonetheless - understandably - still lacks some of the genius, the panache, the instinctive and unrepeatable brilliance of De Bruyne.
His tally of 16 assists last season was far and away the league’s best tally; in the Champions League he was similarly unsurpassed with six. While usually we need not look at such a simple metric to judge whether a player has been effective or not, good or not, in De Bruyne’s case there really is no need to delve deeper: the sheer consistency of him playing in others to score points to how much he has been missed and, whether it takes him one game or one month to regain something of his old sharpness, there’s no question he instantly makes City a far more formidable opponent.
Premier League rivals have perhaps made a little bit of headway over the champions as a result of their slip-ups over winter, an unusual run of one win in six to leave them fourth at best for Christmas.
With a fit De Bruyne back for 2024 they’ll have the same shape but a much sharper outlook and he for one will have the mentality that the ground can be made up, the gap closed, the leaders run down. The league title is still there to be reclaimed once De Bruyne returns - while City’s Champions League rivals didn’t even have the luxury of a headstart without him.
