Kevin De Bruyne spoke after the game about Phil Foden’s best position for Manchester City, after the pair both shone in the 4-0 win over Brighton.
City produced a statement win and performance against Brighton at the Amex Stadium tonight, winning 4-0 against the Seagulls.
De Bruyne opened the scoring with a sublime header that was reminiscent of the famous Robin van Persie World Cup one back in 2010.
Phil Foden added another two before half-time, before Julian Alvarez wrapped things up in the second-half after great work by Ederson and Kyle Walker in the build-up.
Foden was named the Man of the Match for his wonderful display, taking his tally to 24 goals for the season across all competitions.
After the game, De Bruyne was speaking about Foden and where he feels he will play moving forward…
Kevin De Bruyne thinks Phil Foden will continue to play mainly centrally for Manchester City
Tonight, Foden and De Bruyne both played in the middle, but pulled out wide on occasion.
But the England international did keep central for the most-part, and he thrived once again. He got a little lucky with his free-kick, just like he did FC Copenhagen.
But his second goal was just a clinical finish into the bottom corner.
Foden was just mesmerising at times tonight, and very clearly relishes playing in the middle where he gets so much freedom, and has the chance to use his amazing technical ability.
After the game on Sky Sports, De Bruyne and Foden were interviewed and the Belgian was asked about Foden’s position moving forward.
He said: “I think he will end up centrally. I’ve always seen Phil from the beginning, he was always a number 10. It’s sometimes hard to understand everything you need to do in a Pep team. I don’t think it was necessarily the offensive in the beginning when you’re young, it’s more the structure of it. I think on the wing you get a bit more freedom, but I think now Phil gets trusted to play centrally.
“Phil does what he does for about six or seven years already and it’s not like he’s just come onto the scene. He’s been doing this for years and has helped us win titles. This year, he went up another level.”
Foden is a number 10
There can be little doubt at this point that Foden’s best position is as a number 10.
The 23-year-old feels he is best there, and now De Bruyne has said that he feels his teammate is most dangerous in the middle and thinks he will play there more regularly.
It is just a shame that we haven’t really seen this version of Phil Foden for England yet.
Gareth Southgate has been largely reluctant to deploy him there so far. But hopefully, he will work something out and get this extraordinary talent into his best role.
If he can do that and get the balance of the team right, it will be hard to look past England as being the next European champions this summer.