Kevin de Bruyne is one of the best. Without a doubt a Premier League hall of fame contender. In this decade of sustained success for Manchester City, the Belgian has been the team's poster boy. However, the Citizens have decided not to renew his contract, and De Bruyne will leave the club this summer.
Finding someone to replace De Bruyne with is an impossible task. A player of his caliber does not appear under the rocks. We are still going to try to figure out what route could City take and who they might sign to fulfill some of the many roles De Bruyne was taking at City.
De Bruyne’s performance has declined over the past year, largely due to his lack of continuity. Injuries have taken their toll. After playing 69% of the available minutes in the 2022/23 season, De Bruyne has managed just 34% and 48% availability in the last two campaigns.
In some way, his limited 1,310 minutes in 2023/24 help explain why his numbers actually peaked that year. Perhaps a well-managed De Bruyne could still be a huge asset for Manchester City — but we’ll never know.
What's clear is that, even in what has been his worst season in numerical terms, KdB's stats still reflect his magnitude: no midfielder has been involved in more shot-ending sequences and he has also averaged the most xA generated and chances created per game. He also ranks 2nd in shots taken and 5th in passes into the final third. This is a down year for him, or at least a below-par one.
To identify a possible replacement, we selected the eight metrics that best define De Bruyne:
- Elite Playmaker: xA and chances created from open play
- Goal Threat: xG and shots
- Involved in Dangerous Build-up: Shot-ending sequences
- Vertical Player: Ball progression and passes into the final third
- But Controlled: Ball retention (%)
We've calculated the five-season average for each of these metrics. But even with that, no one matches his numbers — a direct replacement simply doesn’t exist. To solve this, we halved each benchmark. So if De Bruyne averaged 20 progressive passes per game, we filtered for players with at least 10. Our KDB Filter ended up like this (stats per 90'):
- xA: 0.2
- Open play chances created: 1.15
- xG: 0.1
- Shots: 1.5
- Shot-ending sequences: 4.7
- Ball progression: 7
- Passes into final third: 10
- Ball retention: 80% (we didn’t halve this because the drop-off would be too drastic)
This search gave us 12 players, and we picked the three best fits. Let’s take a look at them.
Álex Baena – Villarreal – 23 years old
Baena was LaLiga’s top assist provider last season with 14 assists. This year, he’s added more goals (6) and already has 14 goal contributions, just two shy of last season’s tally. The Spaniard is a more vertical player than De Bruyne — 37.4% of his passes go forward, compared to the Belgian’s 30.7%. Baena takes more risks, dribbles more, but sacrifices some of the control Guardiola values so much. His ball retention rate is 83.7%, lower than De Bruyne’s.
Both are players heavily involved in goal and chance creation. They help move their teams into the final third, although their importance differs. Villarreal relies heavily on Baena — he accounts for 38% of their passes into the opposition box. In contrast, De Bruyne shares these duties with teammates, which is why his numbers for progressive passes received (in the final third or in the box) are higher. He's focused on finding space to receive in behind the opposition lines.
This is reflected in the expected threat (xT) they generate per 100 passes: Baena produces 2.13 xT, De Bruyne 1.43 xT. The more passes you play into dangerous areas, the higher your xT grows.
In fact, Álex Baena ranks second among players in Europe’s top five leagues in xT per game. De Bruyne is fifth.
Morgan Gibbs-White – Nottingham Forest – 25 years old
Compared to Baena, the Englishman is less vertical and more controlled in his game. He's a De Bruyne-esque in the sense that both often operate ahead of the ball. Gibbs-White is responsible for 15.8% of Forest’s touches in the opposition box. De Bruyne, by comparison, accounts for 12.8%.
While Baena receives 52% of his progressive passes on the left side of the pitch, Gibbs-White covers more ground and operates in more areas of the pitch.
It wouldn’t be surprising if —as it's being reported— Manchester City saw Gibbs-White as a potential successor to De Bruyne. Their radar profiles are quite similar. In fact, De Bruyne’s higher numbers in some metrics are simply a consequence of City dominating possession more than Forest.
Right now, the main difference is that De Bruyne acts more as a creator — the man to assist. Forest’s style emphasizes quickly passing to the wingers in wide attacks, so Gibbs-White focuses more on finishing plays and finding good positions in the box.
Florian Wirtz – Bayer Leverkusen – 22 years old
The German is the most distinct profile on this list — more of a forward than an attacking midfielder like Baena or Gibbs-White, though all three occupy that area to varying degrees. He’s less involved in buildup play. Only 25.5% of his passes go forward, and he generates 0.84 xT per 100 passes — significantly lower than the others.
However, Wirtz attempts 6.4 dribbles per game and completes 3.77. Among 521 midfielders who’ve played more than 450 minutes in the top five leagues, these numbers put him in the top 20 for both categories. This season, he’s attempted 153 dribbles and completed 92. For comparison, De Bruyne has attempted 86 and completed 42.
Wirtz is a player built to decide matches — to receive and create a chance. But he’s not an organizer, a carrier, or someone to progress the ball like the other two candidates. His 19.6 progressive passes received per match are five more than De Bruyne averages — the highest figure in Europe’s top five leagues.
His influence at City would likely be smaller than at Leverkusen, where he dominates the team’s output: 22% of the team’s xG and 22% of their touches in the box come through him. Nearly 4 out of every 10 passes Leverkusen play into the box are from Wirtz.
With Wirtz, City would be radically rethinking the role De Bruyne once had. But there’s no doubt that the German is the most talented player of the three profiled here.
