De Bruyne hauls again as decision time over City assets draws nearer

Manchester City 2-0 West Ham United

• Goals: Rodri (£5.4m), Kevin De Bruyne (£10.8m)
• Assists: De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva (£7.8m)
• Bonus: De Bruyne x3, Rodri x2, Kyle Walker (£5.7m), Nicolas Otamendi (£5.0m) x1

Kevin De Bruyne (£10.8m) registered his highest Fantasy Premier League points haul of the calendar year in Manchester City’s 2-0 win over West Ham United on Wednesday night.

The routine victory for Pep Guardiola’s side finally, finally brought an interminably long Gameweek 26 to a close, with the focus now swiftly switching to the Saturday’s Gameweek 27 deadline.

Given that the reigning champions next face a trip to Leicester, a blank in Gameweek 28 and a flurry of cup matches that could trigger some rotation in the Premier League, there’ll be a significant number of Fantasy managers who will be considering ditching their City assets.

Four of the ten most-sold players of Gameweek 27 are on the Citizens’ books, with over 50,000 Fantasy bosses having already shipped De Bruyne out over the last week and a half.

The Belgian is doing his utmost to prevent that exodus intensifying, with his 14-point haul against the Hammers taking him back to the top of the overall FPL points table.

He is easily on course to break his best-ever single-season points total and he has now matched his number of attacking returns in 2017/18 (eight goals, 18 assists) with a dozen games still remaining.

His latest double-digit bonanza began with an assist for Rodri‘s (£5.4m) opener, with the Spanish midfielder meeting De Bruyne’s corner with a looping, 29th-minute header to put City in front.

The Belgium international then doubled the hosts’ lead after the break, taking the ball off Bernardo Silva (£7.8m) after some neat interplay and firing a deflected effort past Lukasz Fabianski (£4.9m) at his near post.

There could have been other/further attacking returns, with De Bruyne teeing up the misfiring Gabriel Jesus (£9.5m) for two big chances at either end of the game: the first blocked by Aaron Cresswell (£4.7m), the second fired straight into the midriff of Fabianski from eight yards.

It was a real off-night for the Brazilian striker, who had missed City’s first quality opportunity of the evening when needlessly overcomplicating a one-on-one with the West Ham goalkeeper following David Silva‘s (£7.4m) fine through-ball.

Jesus, playing on the left of City’s 4-3-3, enjoyed the best of the home side’s chances on Wednesday but Sergio Aguero (£12.1m) had plenty of sights of goal, too, registering more shots than any other forward in Gameweek 26.

The Argentine striker evoked memories of Ronaldinho’s goal against Chelsea in 2005 with one off-target effort in the first half, later sending a cross-shot narrowly wide of Fabianski’s post and seeing a handful of other attempts blocked by a West Ham defence that were content to sit on the edge of their own box.

Aguero could easily have had a penalty in the first half, too, with Angelo Ogbonna (£4.5m) escaping punishment for a grab at the City striker’s nether regions as he prepared to shoot.

Despite City being down two wingers in the form of Raheem Sterling (£11.7m) and Leroy Sane (£9.3m), Riyad Mahrez (£8.6m) missed out on a place in Guardiola’s starting XI for only the second time in nine Gameweeks.

There were little clues as to his manager’s team selection thoughts in the post-match press conference, with much of the discussion centred around City’s potential two-year suspension from the UEFA Champions League, and therein lies one of the problems about continued investment in this free-scoring City side: security of starts.

Who knows what Guardiola has lined up for Gameweek 27? Mass rotation ahead of the trip to the Bernabeu or another game of “finding rhythm” before the Champions League last 16?

Mahrez and Fernandinho (£5.2m) at least will fancy their chances of a start after failing to get off the bench in midweek, while an early substitution for De Bruyne, plus the fact that he has now started 18 league games in a row, perhaps points to the Belgian getting another run-out.

Beyond that, it’s the usual guesswork and no-one will be 100% confident of a start at the King Power Stadium.

Guardiola made five alterations to his team for this encounter, with Aymeric Laporte (£6.3m), Benjamin Mendy (£5.5m), Jesus, Bernardo and Silva replacing Mahrez, Fernandinho, Ilkay Gundogan (£5.2m), the suspended Oleksandr Zinchenko (£5.2m) and the injured Sterling.

It remains to be seen if Silva is fit in time for the clash with Brendan Rodgers’ side, with the veteran midfielder having hobbled off in the second half on Wednesday.

Guardiola said of ‘El Mago’ in his post-match-presser:

He told me that he felt something but no big issue, I think. So tomorrow we are going to know exactly. He told me that it was more caution after the action he has in the goal with the keeper.

West Ham scarcely endangered City’s clean sheet, not having a single shot on target, but then this was never about going toe to toe with Guardiola’s side and more about an exercise in damage limitation, with David Moyes indeed stressing the importance of “goal difference” in his post-match interview.

In that sense, the Hammers were partly successful, coping fairly well after an early 20-minute blitz and restricting City to two shots on target (one of which was De Bruyne’s goal) in the second half.

Ogbonna impressed at centre-half, while Declan Rice (£4.7m) was excellent in midfield, mopping up in front of the back five.

Many Fantasy managers (over two-thirds in our captaincy poll) will be handing the armband to a Liverpool player in Gameweek 24, with the Reds taking on West Ham next Monday evening.

This latest display from Moyes’ side at the Etihad was surely a taste of what’s to come, with visitors setting up in a 5-4-1 behind the forlorn figure of Michail Antonio (£6.9m) up top.

Reflecting on the match, Moyes said:

I thought we were really well organised defensively, I think we worked with a good organisation. The structure we set up tonight was to try to make it difficult for Man City. I think with the quality they have got, there will be very few teams come here and be open, I think we have seen that with lots of teams.

We done a decent job. Not good enough to get any points from the game, but I thought there were some bits of defending that were very good. Man City played very well on the ball, yes we gave them the ball sometimes but we also tried to make it hard when it mattered and we ended up conceding from a corner-kick and maybe one we could have stopped with the second one.

The West Ham boss said of Ryan Fredericks (£4.4m), who was substituted on the hour mark with a shoulder injury:

We think it’s something to do with his AC joint [shoulder], we think he may have popped it. We don’t think it is a dislocation and I don’t know yet exactly what it will entail.

Manchester City XI (4-3-3): Ederson; Walker, Otamendi, Laporte (Stones 65′), Mendy; De Bruyne (Gundogan 78′), Rodrigo, D Silva (Foden 84′); Aguero, Jesus, B. Silva.

West Ham United XI (5-4-1): Fabianski; Fredericks (Zabaleta 60′), Diop, Ogbonna, Cresswell, Masuaku; Snodgrass (Bowen 79′), Rice, Noble, Soucek; Antonio.

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