Kevin De Bruyne has claimed that he isn’t surprised about Arsenal’s early form this season, before likening his style of play to Manchester City’s.
The Gunners have won eight of our opening nine matches of the league term thus far, and could make it nine when they take on Leeds United tomorrow, while a win could well see them build a gap over the Citizens, who face a potential banana-skin against Liverpool at Anfield.
De Bruyne has spoken to Sky Sports ahead of tomorrow’s big clash however, and during that interview he was asked about Mikel Arteta and his uprising at Arsenal.
“Not really, no (if he is surprised with Arsenal’s performances),” De Bruyne said.
“I think I see a lot of similarities with the way that we [City] play and that’s always been his [Arteta] style. When he stopped playing football and had the opportunity to come here it was, for him, a good learning school and obviously we had great years together. I saw an evolution from the beginning of Mikel and after three years when left.
“At the beginning he was adapting to his role and then we saw that he had a lot of ambition and when the opportunity comes, he will take it. It’s nice to see that he got the time [at Arsenal] because it’s a very difficult thing to get.”
I think the similarities in the way we play make sense, especially with the likes of Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko fitting swiftly into our side from the Etihad this summer.
Our transitions and forward play can definitely be related, especially to their style from last term which strongly relied on the use of a false 9, and Arteta deserves plenty of credit for building this side and the style we have developed.
Patrick
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