De Bruyne returns with a trademark assist to send message to Man City title rivals in FA Cup cruise

A routine saunter through the FA Cup third round is no big deal for a Manchester City side that has made at least the semi-finals in each of the last five seasons. But the potential for this afternoon’s 5-0 win over Huddersfield to represent a significant moment in their season was still unusually outsized.

That a willing but wildly outmatched Huddersfield were eventually swept away was no surprise to anyone. The result itself will have little impact on the overall trajectory of either teams’ season. But the sight of Kevin De Bruyne and Jeremy Doku both returning to action for City is certainly something that will be noted around the country. It looked for a fleeting moment as if De Bruyne’s first touch since August would be a goal, only for Oscar Bobb’s cross to instead deflect in off a Huddersfield shirt.

But it was more fitting really for De Bruyne to get an assist rather than a goal. He duly did so, with Doku the man to benefit just to really hammer home the point. Between those two goals, City’s actual best player of the day, Phil Foden, scored a neatly worked and precisely finished fourth for City and second for him. He’s filled in manfully in De Bruyne’s absence and had a fine game here as he hands the ringleader’s hat back to the Belgian.

Foden of course still has a huge role to play in this side, but even in this low-key environment City looked notably more threatening and destructive after De Bruyne joined the action. Huddersfield’s understandable weariness after an hour of leather-chasing was undoubtedly a factor, but City scoring three further goals with De Bruyne prominent in all three – assist for the fifth, pass into the penalty area to help create the fourth, loitering with intent to force the third – sounds a warning the rest of the Premier League will have to heed.

Liverpool, Arsenal, Aston Villa and Tottenham have all had their fun while City have been forced to cope without De Bruyne, but those days are over now. We all know how City love an absurd winning run around this point of the season, and the return of De Bruyne at a time when some of their rivals are losing rather than regaining key players will cause consternation at Anfield, the Emirates and elsewhere.

Doku’s absence might not have been as lengthy or as keenly felt as De Bruyne’s, but when he last left the field for City they were 2-1 up against Spurs having seemingly recovered from early difficulty. They would drop two points that night and have since lost at Villa and drawn with Crystal Palace. His return after just over a month is another huge boost for Pep Guardiola.

Doku offers a directness that City’s many other elite attacking options don’t always possess, something that was highlighted in the first half-hour here in which a well-organised Huddersfield side but one that is nevertheless currently to be found just outside the Championship relegation zone were able to place a bank of four on the edge of their area with another bank of five treading on their toes and pretty easily frustrate the holders for a reasonably extended period of time.

It wasn’t quite ‘biggest cheer of the afternoon’ territory, but the gleeful response from the City fans to De Bruyne’s appearance in the second half told a story. It seems absurd that a team like City, with all their resources and success, should be in a situation where one player can be missed so badly, but De Bruyne is that player. More so even than Erling Haaland, who remains on the sidelines, De Bruyne is City’s main man. And on today’s evidence, De Bruyne has launched a bid to rival Haaland on the hair front as well, sporting an uncharacteristically attention-seeking trim that sat right in the sweet spot between Haaland and Grealish.

De Bruyne isn’t really a player who ever has to do much to be noticed, and there will be no doubt that the rest of the top five will have seen him ease back in – albeit in gentle circumstances – and show no signs of rustiness or a lack of sharpness and know that now the real business of the season is under way.