This Is Why EVERY Footballer Respects Kevin De Bruyne ᴴᴰ

I came across a lot of players, played with a lot of players. Played against some of the greatest. I think Kevin is the most clever player I've seen in my life. Kevin is a joke. He's unbelievable. He can make absolutely everything. Everything. No disrespect to the others, but for me he's the best player in the city of the club. I think De Bruyne can do everything as a midfield player. Which is what a midfield player should be able to do. His assists are absolutely fantastic. When he's in possession, he always looks like he's in total control. And the stats there with the assists, plus the goals, is I think pretty amazing. He puts crosses into a box that make defenders not know whether to want to actually touch it, leave it. Because it's in an area whereby it's so dangerous in between you and the goalkeeper. You know exactly what he's going to do. He's predictable actually in terms of reading. But the problem is you still can't do anything about it. Because the precision and the accuracy is so good. He's an absolute world-class player. And the delivery for me was just a thing of beauty. I think he's unbelievable. If we would have played at Liverpool, we would have gone even further than we already are. I think he's outstanding. Good on the ball, pressing, scoring. He's got everything as a modern-day midfielder and footballer in general. I think he's an outstanding player. To be able to play behind him for the number of years that I've done has been a pleasure. A pleasure. We see things, but we don't pass the ball. He sees things and he doesn't care if he gives it away. The one ball that summed it up for me was the one he played against Stoke where he beat him 7-2 and it was for Leroy. The one round the back of the defence? It was right round, right around the back. When people are moving as well, he's running back to their goal and he's just whipping it. He's sober. He sees the game a couple of steps ahead of everyone else. He's already planning his next move before the ball's come to him. Very, very gifted. And those passes, those live rule passes that he plays in behind the defence or the crosses that he's whipping in, just sensational. Some of De Bruyne's passes, you could almost have a team of engineers out there for an hour looking at the angles that he's producing in a split second. He can find gaps and openings that just don't exist. I don't know if he's the one, the two or the three, but for me he's one of the best players in the history of the Premier League without a question of a doubt. I've never seen, I've never played with a player that can execute that precisely at high speed. He can be running at 33, 34 kilometres an hour and play the ball 30 metres through two people to the perfect spot. I haven't seen anybody else do that at that pace. Kevin is one of the best players I've ever seen in my life. The absolute worldie of a player. Someone who I admire now, who I love watching play football. I switch on to watch Manchester City whenever they're on. Runs, chases, tackles, but sees a pass, sees a goal. Yeah, proper, focused, professional footballer he is. It's very difficult to understand Kevin's brain. Kevin will see the path of a goal, the path of what should have happened and when you miss-pass the ball where the ball should have gone, he can see that that miss-pass that you are like, why is he getting upset because I just squared the ball back to the keeper? He already saw the path of where the ball should have gone and his mind is like, we just lost an opportunity to score. You didn't even realise that he did. He's a player you can get something of him, learning from him as a coach or from the players. Before Kevin De Bruyne appeared, I think the playmaker was a figure that he slowed the tempo down and he could execute that pass. I think Kevin transformed that. He was the one that, as a playmaker, accelerated the tempo of the game. I've never seen players that they could do that. He's someone that he appears in the game very intelligent in usage of the space. He never plays in a fit position. He can appreciate the space and what's needed and then the level of execution is the quality and the tempo that he provides the team. He's quite unique. He's a playmaker that off the ball can affect the play and he gets into that assist quality that I don't think we've seen in the Premier League. The numbers speak for itself. I think he's a unique playmaker. I think he's a modern time playmaker. You give Kevin De Bruyne a plan and he can have the picture in his mind before he gets the ball and he's the best player in the world. Nobody can do what he does. And then anything simple because he does it so well, he's better than anybody else. He sees things that other players don't see but especially he tries things that other players wouldn't dare to try and he was one of the main reasons why we achieved so much in the last eight seasons mainly. The only thing that we can say to him is thank you and wish him all the best.