With De Bruyne fit and firing, Man City gain title race momentum،
NEWCASTLE, England – There are few players in the world who can make a stadium as electric as St James' Park hold its breath, and even fewer who can back it up with a reaction-worthy performance. Kevin De Bruyne, however, is one of them, and a game Newcastle United were close to winning ended in a dramatic defeat against Manchester City thanks to 20 magical minutes from the brilliant Belgian.
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De Bruyne, making his first Premier League appearance since August, entered the field in the 69th minute with City trailing 2-1 and running out of ideas. At the final whistle he scored a goal and an assist and the visiting fans, high above the goal, celebrated a famous 3-2 victory by chanting “this is why we are champions”.
His finish to caress the ball into the corner from outside the box, making the score 2-2, was good, but his pass to pick out Oscar Bobb for a stoppage-time winner was even better. As De Bruyne stood on the sideline, waiting to come on, the energy inside the stadium began to fade away, as if the Newcastle fans who had made their team roar for nearly 70 minutes knew what was going to happen.
Oh, I missed that! Which team! 💙 pic.twitter.com/2ah1r3LZtQ
– Kevin De Bruyne (@KevinDeBruyne) January 13, 2024
For the first time on a chaotic evening, City had momentum in the game and perhaps now, with De Bruyne fit and healthy, they have momentum in the title race.
“He’s a legend,” Man City manager Pep Guardiola said afterwards. “I had the feeling that he was not ready for 90 minutes after five months, so we have this situation, this impact in the last minutes. The goal and the assist, he is loved by our people and I hope that over the last few months he can help us be there until the end.”
If City win a fourth consecutive title, they could consider their victory at Newcastle in mid-January an important victory. In a venue where Arsenal, Aston Villa, Manchester United, Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain have all been beaten this season, City lost goalkeeper Ederson to injury within the first five minutes, conceded twice in two frantic minutes in the first halftime and still found a goal. way to win.
It might have been different if Alexander Isak – scorer of a sublime opening goal for Newcastle – had taken one of the two chances to make it 3-1, but Ederson's replacement Stefan Ortega made two good stops. This meant that when Newcastle began to run out of steam after an hour, De Bruyne was able to take advantage with a world-class ability to find spaces and make the most of them.
“He has more space or freedom to move where his nose or his gut feels,” Guardiola said. “When Kevin has the ball, we need runners and Oscar did that well.”
Under normal circumstances, Bobb's first Premier League goal – deftly rounding Newcastle goalkeeper Martin Dubravka with a quick move of the ball in the 91st minute – would have grabbed the headlines, but De Bruyne's appearance was so special that it was difficult to concentrate on anything else, even for Newcastle manager Eddie Howe.
“We want him to be rusty and he wasn’t,” Howe said bluntly. “We wanted to minimize the space for him and for the majority of the time he was there we managed it very well. With three minutes to play we thought we were almost there.
“We have so much promise, there have been so many good things, but we are sitting here with nothing and it is very painful for the players. The first half was everything we wanted to be. We want to be at the forefront, but in the second half we couldn't deal with it,” Howe added.
It was not lost on the Newcastle boss that when Guardiola was able to turn to De Bruyne to win him the game, he was just comfortable enough to bring on 19-year-old Lewis Hall four minutes from time . Injuries are wreaking havoc on Newcastle's season and they have now lost six of their last seven league matches.
“We like the players we have, but not all of our offensive players are available,” Howe said. “If the injuries were spread out, it wouldn't be such a big deal for us. When we're at full strength, we're incredibly talented. I don't think it would have been unfair if we had drawn.”
Newcastle's failure to score a point was largely due to De Bruyne's intervention at a crucial moment in the match as he makes his return from injury at a crucial time of the season. There were times during the campaign when Guardiola spoke damningly of City's chances of winning a fourth successive title, but that seems a long way off now.
“My team is alive,” he said, in an ominous warning to the rest of the Premier League. “We’ve won three in a row, five in the last six, so why not?”
De Bruyne is back and so is belief.
