As soon as the new PB matrix was announced, it seemed obvious that one of the main beneficiaries was going to be Man City's Kevin De Bruyne. Key passes galore, the Citizen's creative maestro was a lot of traders go-to purchase.
It took two games for the Belgian to bring home his first PB dividends of the season, scooping the star man on the seasons first treble match day in the late kick off against Tottenham.
While City were denied the 3 points from a late VAR decision, it's Spurs who may want to re-watch the tape as they allowed De Bruyne too much space to operate as he created his way to a score of 275.
Firstly, take nothing away from De Bruyne, his quality is incredible. The whipped ball from the opening City goal was outrageous. He made 9 key passes racking up 54 of his points (before any stacking) with 40 assist points too. He was outstanding.
Watching the game, while most people were raving about De Bruyne, something different stood out for me. De Bruyne had the time to do whatever he liked. If you give a player of that quality that much time, he is going to pick you apart, and that's what he did.
His movement was superb, it always is, but Spurs and in particular Harry Winks needed to more to get closer to him and stop him playing. You only needed to watch a 10 minute spell to see that he had far too much time from a defensive standpoint.
For the first goal, Winks has to be closer to KDB so he doesn't have the freedom to whip in that top quality ball.
The images below show Winks (circled with De Bruyne) originally tracking his run. However while KDB checks his run, Winks continues and ends up in the back four. When the ball is played to De Bruyne, Winks is too far away to affect the play. He's also not required in the back four.
Winks could have blocked a cross, reduced the angle for the cross or even avoided the situation all together as the pass may not have even been played for KDB in the first place.
The image below is just a few minutes later. It came to nothing but it was another warning sign for Spurs who were letting him run riot. Danny Rose has to be tighter and stop the cross. With the quality he has, and cover inside he can get tighter. The risk of getting too tight is getting beat one-on-one, but with Sanchez covering inside, this is a risk Rose can take for me.
There isn't much that needs to be said about the next image (apart from the reflection of my living room somewhat spoiling the picture). You wouldn't be happy at grassroots level if you gave their best player 10 yards of space in every direction. Eriksen, Lamela, Winks and Ndombele all now out of the game.
Lamela's equaliser came against the play but City were soon back ahead, once again letting De Bruyne have too much space to create a tap in for Aguero.
Working from left to right; Rose has a decent position on Bernado Silva as the ball is shifted to him. Eriksen is with Kyle Walker. It's not a bad set up defensively for Spurs, however neither Winks or Sanchez notices Rose has a problem 2 on 1.
I'd like to see Winks and/or Sanchez get closer to De Bruyne here. Winks should screen the potential pass in to his feet, while Sanchez's position closer to the City man means that if what happened, happens, you are closer to the ball.
Image 2 shows the pass from Silva in to the space which De Bruyne is running in to, but both Winks and Sanchez are too far away from him and he's left with acres of space to pick out the pass in image 3 which led to the second goal.
Spurs are a good side, and I'm a fan of Winks. KDB can easily tear you apart and he will do it to poorer teams that Spurs, this isn't a piece to take away from his quality; his movement and precision is tough to defend against, but Spurs will be disappointed with how they let him have so much time and space. To take the star man on a treble day shows how much influence he had on the game and how crucial creative players might become in the new scoring matrix.
What do you think? Is KDB just too good or should Spurs have defended better against him? Is he a PB hold this season with the change in matrix scoring? Let us know @_FIBT on Twitter.