Easy as KDB: City's engine is an early frontrunner for PFA award
For Manchester City fans of a certain vintage, there is no loftier praise bestowed on a player in sky blue than drawing comparisons to Colin Bell. The cultured midfielder was plucked from nearby Bury in 1966 amid plenty of attention from rival clubs, and soon left the Maine Road faithful doe-eyed with his ability to drift across the uneven and puddled surfaces that counted as pitches in those days. With Francis Lee and Mike Summerbee also starring, City played into the most dominant era of its history.
The parallels between Bell and City players that have followed have been used increasingly sparingly. The gross overspend granted by attention-seeking chairman Peter Swales and splurged by his egotist coach Malcolm Allison in the late-'70s meant that good football at City became scarce for some time, and on the rare occasions that a player emerged with some similarities to Bell's game - such as youth team graduates Paul Lake and, more recently, Michael Johnson - they had their careers prematurely ended by injury.
Perhaps Lake and Johnson were too similar, with Bell suffering the same fate after a tackle by Martin Buchan in a 4-0 League Cup defeat of Manchester United in 1975.
The latest player cautiously dubbed as being "like Colin Bell" is Kevin De Bruyne. There's hope that he'll overcome the curse and, so far, he's undoubtedly a favourite for the 2017-18 PFA Player of the Year award. He has a similar engine to the man who's named after the Etihad Stadium's west stand - Bell's moniker was "Nijinsky" after a powerful Canadian-bred racehorse - and, despite his ever-reddening face suggesting otherwise, never seems to run out of juice and is unscathed as he reaches his prime at 26.
In Saturday's wrangle in Watford, De Bruyne lasted 66 minutes until his legs were saved before a midweek League Cup trip to West Bromwich Albion, and next Saturday's visit from Crystal Palace, which became the first side to record five losses without scoring since the formation of the Football League in 1888. It's not the most daunting of affairs on the horizon, but Pep Guardiola's press and passing game is reaching a relentless crescendo, and De Bruyne is his fulcrum. In the 6-0 victory at Vicarage Road, De Bruyne was unstoppable.
"He learns, he's so intelligent. You say one instruction and he understands immediately," Guardiola gushed after last week's 5-0 pummelling of Liverpool.
"He produces a huge (number) of passes and assists. Last season he shot 15 or 16 times against the posts. We were unlucky. Hopefully this year he can help us.
"He's quick, he always sees the spaces on the middle or outside. He runs more than anyone else. He's good with balls to feet, he's good attacking space."
De Bruyne - labelled the "complete player" by Guardiola - does appear to have become accustomed to the Spanish manager's plans quicker than most. Perhaps it's the width assumed by new full-backs Kyle Walker and Benjamin Mendy that's opened expanses of space for De Bruyne, David Silva, and whoever is retreating out of Sergio Aguero and Gabriel Jesus. The difference with De Bruyne is that he's given the most freedom to create with bursting runs and sprung deliveries when he's in possession.
Silva is arguably City's greatest player of all time, but De Bruyne, through a studious reading of Guardiola's philosophy and unassailable work ethic, will be the star of this campaign. Silva draws plaudits due to his feathery licking of the ball with his twinkle toes; De Bruyne gets in pundits' faces with stabs and slugs of the leather spheroid.
For a country that preferred N'Golo Kante's industrial bouncing around the middle over Eden Hazard's supreme dribbling ability last season, these are just the ingredients to become a frontrunner for the PFA Player of the Year gong.
The debate will continue next week over beers in various sticky-floored haunts surrounding the Etihad over how this current breed matches up against those overseen by Joe Mercer and his then-assistant Allison in the late-1960s and early-1970s. Of course, it lacks the romance of taking nascent players from neighbouring minnows or from the academy, but De Bruyne, expensively acquired from VfL Wolfsburg, is on the same level as Bell.
For everyone else, the ultimate decision for the league's best individual could be between De Bruyne and Paul Pogba across town. With the assists beginning to rain in with the ferocity of a Manchester February and Guardiola's system bearing fruit, the smart money is on the former.