Bailly, you really put Bailly there. Sigh.

None of them have a case lol, Kane has the biggest case of the names mentioned but even him doesn't.

City are top by 8 points and look more likely to extend that than lose it and De Bruyne is the biggest reason why.

Anyone who has watched them play for more than 5 minutes can tell you that, Firenze has a track record of downplaying De Bruyne though and I don't really know why.

He's been the best player in the league, everybody recognises it lol.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:None of them have a case lol, Kane has the biggest case of the names mentioned but even him doesn't.

City are top by 8 points and look more likely to extend that than lose it and De Bruyne is the biggest reason why.

Anyone who has watched them play for more than 5 minutes can tell you that, Firenze has a track record of downplaying De Bruyne though and I don't really know why.

He's been the best player in the league, everybody recognises it lol.

I would dispute that. Kane playing and scoring and leading Tottenham as he has been certainly has a case. While yes it is true, he hasn't been prominent and consistent in every game, he is such a focal figure in this Spurs team. He brings out the best of his fellow attacking teammates, and he puts fear into opposition defenders.

De Bruyne on the other hand can be argued whether he is actually been the best player on his team. Time and time again, David Silva gets overlooked when he is such an integral part to the final ball in the final third. He is the linkage from De Bruyne to Aguero/Jesus/Sane/Sterling. He gives De Bruyne the space to back up, and play with more freedom and confidence. David Silva is an offensive technical warrior and magician, that makes this Pep City team click like it has been clicking so far this season.

Firenze wrote:Eriksen, Kane, Salah, Bailly

all better so far

can even argue Sterling has been better

No player from the 1st placed team in the league in the top 4, ok then

M99 wrote:

Firenze wrote:Eriksen, Kane, Salah, Bailly

all better so far

can even argue Sterling has been better

No player from the 1st placed team in the league in the top 4, ok then

Yes... so butthurt

Sugars coming back from the dead have Firenze all shook. Not even getting his top 5 PL rank properly. His duels with ES (now Kaladin) have also clearly taken its toll on him.

Silva has been great, nobody is overlooking him. It just so happens De Bruyne has been better and significantly so.

Also Silva doesn't really give De Bruyne space, if anything it's the opposite. The reason why De Bruyne is so much better than everyone else is because he controls the game, drives the team forward, creates a ridiculous amount of chances and scores himself.

I don't think it should be underestimated how great he has been, there's been very few midfielders in the PL who have been this good over the last 5 years.

Maybe he drops off but as of now he's been at a level very few have approached recently in English football in dominating so many different aspects.

Right now this isn't a debate realistically, it's more of a question of is he the best in Europe and can he prove it in the CL.

Bailly was clearly a tongue in cheek inclusion. De Bruyne has been great but I completely disagree with him being miles better than the rest.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:Silva has been great, nobody is overlooking him. It just so happens De Bruyne has been better and significantly so.

Also Silva doesn't really give De Bruyne space, if anything it's the opposite. The reason why De Bruyne is so much better than everyone else is because he controls the game, drives the team forward, creates a ridiculous amount of chances and scores himself.

I don't think it should be underestimated how great he has been, there's been very few midfielders in the PL who have been this good over the last 5 years.

Maybe he drops off but as of now he's been at a level very few have approached recently in English football in dominating so many different aspects.

Right now this isn't a debate realistically, it's more of a question of is he the best in Europe and can he prove it in the CL.

Can you list those aspects that he has been so significantly better in than anyone else?

Typical Mole as usual, makes the the conclusions for himself "Right now this isn't a debate realistically..." why are you deciding what is realistic and why are you trying to avoid the debate?

I just did lol, he's controlling the game, he's driving the team forward, scoring important goals and something I didn't mention defending at a high level.

Seriously just watch the games, everything he's doing makes it looks like he's a man playing against boys as everything is so easy for him.

Seriously if you watch City games and don't think he's clearly the MVP of that team I really can't help you. There's nobody on that team that has to do so many different things at a high level for them to win football matches.

I find this strange tbh, it's pretty damn obvious how much better he is. It's like watching peak Toure with better technique, higher work rate and Tactical intelligence and going nah there's better lol.

I'm sorry if I sound arrogant but I really feel like going by the responses in these threads you really don't get how much better he is.

Well I disagree with you and most of the people here on GL if they can't see how integral David Silva is to this team and the performances of KdB.

Silva draws the defenders closer to forwards and leaves space for De Bruyne and Fernandinho to operate. Fernandinho is actually another player that aids in De Bruyne's space and ball retention in the team, he is also majorly overlooked at times. Yet still Silva is the most important tool to this City team, and the best so far this season. Ball retention and crossfield diagonals doesn't mean that you are running the game, when Silva's off the ball movements gives you the space and opens the channels for you to drive into. Silva is a genius. When he is on the ball he feeds his teammates with smart small accurate passes, to congest the a section of the field, in order to create more space again for his teammates including KdB to exploit. He has 7 assists one more than KdB, and because he is the player prepared to take on the opposition players in congested spaces there is already a higher level of difficulty to his assists, as compared to KdB who has space to pick his passes. Silva glides in and around the left, centre and right of the pitch like no other player in the league, and he does so with energy as well.

There are few smarter and impactful players in the league than him, mind he might be the best at it. He has been doing it for years, and admittedly there might have been a season where he eased off a bit, but he is better than ever before. And this article agrees with me.
https://www.mancity.com/news/first%20team/first%20team%20news/2017/october/david%20silva%20on%20course%20for%20best%20season%20ever

Praise be to Free Cat. A true football visionary.

He bit the bullet and in between his telephone votes for Andre Gomes, joined the rest of Europe and voted for KDB.

A true KFA in every sense.

Hazard and KDB

Belgian lads going ham with the bot voting I guess

What team of the year is this?

The Milky Way Team Of The Year? The Star Wars Team Of The Year?

We need to start a formal petition to stop people from voting for Dani Alves

It's actually unreal

Luca wrote:We need to start a formal petition to stop people from voting for Dani Alves

It's actually unreal

I'd be pissed if I was Kimmich.

TBF he could be killing it and no one here would know because Ligue 1

BarrileteCosmico wrote:TBF he could be killing it and no one here would know because Ligue 1

The fact of the matter is he played about 3-4 good games for Juve last season. He really has no business being in all of these 11s

At least they got Chiellini in there but ffs

Only De Bruyne is there for contributions in 2017-18. Everyone else made this team from last season’s end

Dani Alves started performing at the start of the year once he returned from injury. I don't know how he's doing at PSG but he had a great second half of the season and obviously one of the best players for Juve in the CL.

He started performing around March for a very small window of games and went back to being crap. Not more than a handful in the league. Only good in the CL later stages.

Those small window of games were the most important games in the season. Cristiano was also 'crap' by his standards  until he started performing in the knockouts last season.  Also dint we play Porto around Feb ?

I don't remember him having bad games in the business end of the season. His defending gradually improved as well. Heck, he even scored a goal against Atalanta which would have made potentially made Juve champions earlier than expected until a last minute defensive mixup cancelled his goal out and we had to wait some more games to clinch the title.

Just because he had some not so good words to say before he left , doesn't cancel out his performances in the most important phase of the season. He probably might be doing well at psg for all we know.

If you read the Juve section last season you know my criticism has nothing to do with whatever he said after he left. I don't care about hating ex players because they leave, I'm still a Pogba fan for example. He was incredibly frustrating during games and I was posting it in the match thread as it went.

He was by far the laziest player we've had in years. He would score a goal or two and assist and combine really well with his passing. Then he would be caught out of position 2 out of 3 times and it was up to Barzagli to keep cleaning up after him.

He was so poor defending that 1) Litch actually did a lot better than him and benched him 2) it came to the point that to use him properly we switched to a back 3 so he be a wingback and have less responsibilities.

He absolutely failed as a fullback for us. It pisses me off that people who only watched us in CL (not you @S, I mean fans of other teams) say that Alves had this GOAT season when he was so poor for 90% of it.

In the "important" phase of the season (even though all phases are important) he still failed as he was only playing properly during CL and was either benched in Serie A, played as a wingback, or even as a winger all the way up because he couldn't give 2 shits to about the games to defend properly. Its even more insulting since we know he is capable of playing well all around like he did vs Barca where he was a beast in both phases of the game, he just couldn't care enough.

S wrote:Those small window of games were the most important games in the season. Cristiano was also 'crap' by his standards  until he started performing in the knockouts last season.  Also dint we play Porto around Feb ?

I don't remember him having bad games in the business end of the season. His defending gradually improved as well. Heck, he even scored a goal against Atalanta which would have made potentially made Juve champions earlier than expected until a last minute defensive mixup cancelled his goal out and we had to wait some more games to clinch the title.

To get more specific, we did play Porto the last week of February but Alves didn't, he came on at the end and scored. He played the full game of the return leg in March.



Since the new year, he was benched for a bunch of smaller games, and then also for the biggest games in Italy+Porto:
Lazio (Jan)
Milan (Jan)
Inter (Feb)
Napoli, CI (Feb)
Porto (Feb)
Napoli (Aprill)
Torino (May)
Roma (May)

He sucked for almost the whole season.

I almost forgot. He was excellent in the Coppa Italia final too. Scored a goal in that game too.

He just delivered when it mattered. Those few games defined our season. Also how do you know how he is faring at PSG? If he is doing well there, then I don't see why it is some sort of crime to have him in the team of the year for 2017 because he's had legit performances for Juve to back it up and also perhaps must be doing well at PSG( I don't watch them so I don't know how he's doing)

I didn't say I knew how he is doing at PSG or anything about that.

How did he just delivered when it mattered? Maybe to you only the CL matters, and then he didn't actually deliver in the final either.

He didn't deliver in the small games in the league, he didn't deliver in the big games in the league. He didn't deliver period.

He only delivered in the knockout stages of the CL.

Nobody delivered in the final for that matter except for Mandzukic so why blame Alves for that ? He was hardly one of our worser players in the final.

As for the league , I agree he had very minimal contribution.

But if you have legit performances in the biggest stage in Europe, it's hard to ignore that contribution. As I mentioned, also key in winning Coppa Italia final.

I didn't say I knew how he is doing at PSG or anything about that  

Then there's no point about you arguing that he doesn't deserve to be in the list. This team is for the calender year 2017 so obviously his PSG performances would matter too.

You're just biased towards him. That's it.