Kevin de Bruyne looks miserable as he’s dropped to Man City bench and relegated to embarrassing warm-up role vs Spurs
KEVIN DE BRUYNE was spotted looking down in the dumps after being DROPPED by Manchester City for their defeat at Tottenham.
The Belgian midfielder, 31, is widely-recognised as one of the finest players on the planet.
And his almost telepathic understanding with striker Erling Haaland has downed many teams already this term.
However, Pep Guardiola opted to leave the magician out of his City side for the trip to Spurs as he only named him on the bench.
As the starting XI prepared for action beforehand, De Bruyne was spotted performing the role of laying off the ball for his team-mates to fire shots off during the warm-up.
Things soon got worse for City as they fell behind early doors as Harry Kane became Tottenham’s all-time record goalscorer.
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And De Bruyne was caught on camera sitting glum faced as he watched on the action from the bench.
Guardiola did confirm before kick-off that De Bruyne's omission was purely tactical.
That is despite his star registering 12 assists in the top-flight so far this term.
He also added: “I am more focused on today than yesterday. Nothing has changed. We have to do our job.”
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Haaland was completely starved of the ball throughout the first period with no-one to provide the ammunition.
However, Guardiola stuck to his guns and failed to introduce De Bruyne at the break before eventually turning to the star in the 59th minute.
But, unfortunately for him and the Cityzens, he was unable to rescue them as they slipped to a 1-0 defeat to Spurs.