Kevin De Bruyne was peerless again last season as he shone through as the best player in the Premier League for the second time in three years.
After a promising first campaign at Manchester City, the Belgian has taken his game to another level under Pep Guardiola and equalled a league record for the most assists in a single campaign as he looked better than ever.
If De Bruyne will carry the expectations of his team and many a Fantasy Premier League player next season, there is no shortage of players looking to take his crown. Liverpool's Trent Alexander-Arnold is regularly trumpeted, Chelsea's Christian Pulisic grew into the league as he went along and then there is Manchester United's Bruno Fernandes.
Fernandes, who was linked with the Blues last summer as part of repeated attempts from Portugal to flog him, had a gamechanging effect on City's closest rivals when he joined them in the January transfer window. They haven't lost a Premier League game since he arrived, going 14 games unbeaten, with his eight goals and seven assists proving integral to that run.
The 25-year-old has not had trouble setting ambitions, challenging his teammates to start next season with the belief that they can win the Premier League for the first time since 2013. And he showed in response to a Jose Mourinho dig about the number of penalties he scores that he has been keeping tabs on what other players are doing.
“I hear people saying, ‘ah, he only scores from penalty kicks,’" he countered, "but a little while ago, I saw the statistics and, except for penalties, only Kevin De Bruyne has a higher involvement in goals than me in England when it comes to midfielders.”
With a full season ahead of him, Fernandes will be looking to extend the form that saw him win consecutive Player of the Month awards - incredibly, two more than De Bruyne has ever won - and challenge the City playmaker's place as the most influential in the league.
De Bruyne appears pretty relaxed about statistics and records, rarely talking up his own achievements. However, his frequent comments dropped in as last season progressed about the assists that he felt the Premier League had wrongly denied him showed his competitive nature and the 29-year-old will be determined to kick on.
The rivalry between City and United has been lacking an edge in recent years given the gulf between the two sides. A 15-point chasm between the two sides in the last league table continued this, although victory for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's men in three out of four meetings last season went some way to sparking the life back into the matches.
How clear De Bruyne can hold off Fernandes in the new season could determine how close the gap between City and United will be.
