De Bruyne’s injury is the chance of a lifetime for Foden. Will the English winger finally take his chance?

Manchester City have to do without a key figure of the last few years, Kevin De Bruyne, for some time, and another big signing, Ilkay Gündogan, left the club before the season. Such a hole will be very difficult for Pep Guardiola to plug, but thanks to this, Phil Foden has a chance to definitely convince everyone of his talent.

Foden has been with Manchester City’s A-team since 2017 and so far, it has been about gaining experience. However, last season saw a slight drop in his game, as after 2 seasons in which he always played more than 3,000 minutes, he was only given an opportunity in 2,660 minutes by the Spanish coach.

After a lukewarm start to last season, when Guardiola went crazy on several occasions about how Foden was playing himself instead of passing to Erling Haaland in offload positions, the reaction came and the talented English winger started getting less and less space on the pitch.

Just as Foden was starting to regain his stride in February this year, a slight injury came up which caused him to miss 3 league games, whereupon he was given a lot of space on the pitch again towards the end of last season.

He is in the same position this season, starting in the starting lineup for the second game in a row. The last time against Newcastle though in a slightly different role, after De Bruyne’s injury many Premier League experts are of the opinion that the time has come for Foden to seize his chance and become a key figure in the attack, supplying Haaland with the necessary passes and of course scoring the decisive goals as well.

The Belgian midfielder is already 32 years old, so gradually someone will be needed to take over from him. Of course, we’re talking about slightly different positions here as Foden is definitely a much more attacking player than De Bruyne, but their key contribution to the team is the same.

Foden turned 23 this spring, but he has already played 221 games in a Citizens jersey, scoring 60 goals and assisting another 42. Add to that 25 starts for the England national team.

So far, Foden seems to be repaying Guardiola’s trust with all ten, as he assisted the only goal of the game in an important match against Newcastle at the weekend and was voted the best player on the pitch according to Whoscored.

But if he is to become one of the Citizens’ stars, he needs to confirm these performances game after game. So we will see if De Bruyne’s role will be bettered or even surpassed.

Source: Premier League, Whoscored