Belgian playmaker, Kelvin Debruyne set football fans buzzing following his return to football after a four-month absence.
The Manchester City midfielder until Sunday has not played for City since August after undergoing hamstring surgery.
The 32-year-old player was introduced in the 57th minute after replacing Jack Grealish in Manchester City’s third-round game in the FA Cup against Huddersfield.
He provided an assist for Jeremy Doku in the 74th minute to score the 5th goal of the game.
Manchester City would eventually win the match by five goals to nil.
Reacting after the game, a tweep identified as @MOD, tweeted, “De Bruyne is back, yeah man this league is finished they’re winning the league again.”
Sport news blog @CentreGoals, tweeted, “First game back and Kevin De Bruyne has already bagged an assist… he’s back and the whole of Europe is shaking.”
While @Ezra tweeted, “Man City scored 3 goals since Kevin De Bruyne got subbed on, yeah man, they’re back.”
Sharing a similar opinion, @Sid, tweeted, “Man city are 5 points behind for the top of the league. with a game in hand and they just bring de bruyne back in the team. We are finished”.
Kevin De Bruyne leads all players in Europe’s major five leagues in assists across all competitions since the beginning of last season, despite only making three appearances in the current season.
During the post match interview, Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola stated, “He played really good minutes.
“We thought it was better to play the second half than from the beginning when the game was tighter…It was really good and now, as I said before, he needs to accumulate training sessions and more training sessions, more than games. Still he is not ready for 90 minutes.”
The Spaniard added: “Kevin helps to win games and there are few (like him) in the world. We can play good football-wise but Kevin, (Erling) Haaland, Phil (Foden), Julian (Alvarez) — these guys win games.
“That’s why it’s so important to have him back. Kevin is exceptional, he is unique. He was a long time out with surgery. His first minutes, the quality of the assist for the Jeremy (Doku) goal — it’s really good to have him back.”
De Bruyne’s exceptional skills are expected to bolster City’s ambitions of defending their titles in the Premier League, Champions League, and FA Cup, which they secured during their triumphant 2022/23 season. Guardiola is anticipating the return of several senior players to bring the squad back to full strength in pursuit of their objectives.
“What I want is to arrive in the second part of the season with everyone fit,” he said. “I want Erling back, Kevin back, Jeremy and John (Stones). When they are back we have a team that can compete in different competitions until the end.”
