Gary Lineker has said that one Manchester City player can sometimes be moody on the pitch.
In addition to making 294 appearances across three English clubs during his playing career, the BBC presenter has watched many top-flight games for a significant period of time in his media role.
Now though, with another Premier League season completed, the former England striker has been sharing his thoughts on two of the biggest players in the division, but not on their footballing ability.
Lineker says ‘stroppy’ Man City star is not captain material
In a recent edition of the Match of the Day: Top 10 podcast hosted by Lineker, Alan Shearer and Micah Richards shared their best XIs filled with who the best players in the Premier League are.
With both pundits including Kevin De Bruyne and Virgil van Dijk in their teams, Lineker had this to say about which of the duo would be more suited to being a captain of their hypothetical best Premier League XI.
He said: “I think Van Dijk is the ultimate captain, I do, because he’s got calmness, he’s got authority, he’s got stature.
“I think De Bruyne can get a bit headstrong, a bit stroppy at times. Whereas I think Van Dijk is always in control. And I think your captain needs to be in control because sometimes your players will lose their heads a little bit and you need someone to go ‘hang on a minute.’
“Whereas I think Kevin, the only thing I would say, and I don’t think it’s a bad thing about his game but in terms of being the captain, occasionally he can get Mr Stroppy.”
De Bruyne has a track record of being moody
This isn’t the first time De Bruyne, whom City paid £54m to sign back in 2015, has been described as being particularly irritable.
For example, before joining City, Jose Mourinho and John Obi Mikel claimed that the Belgian was moody during his time at Chelsea.
Then at City, the midfielder appeared to lose his rag with David Silva during a Champions League game back in 2017.
More recently, in last season’s 4-0 win over Real Madrid in the Champions League, De Bruyne looked to have had a bit of an on-field row with Pep Guardiola, who ultimately laughed the situation off after the game, dismissing any notion of a falling out between the pair.
Despite this making Lineker feel that De Bruyne may not be the best candidate to captain a side, the fact that he has scored 102 goals and delivered 170 assists in 381 games for City shows just how important he is in terms of his footballing ability.