Graeme Souness makes Kevin De Bruyne statement Arsenal and Chelsea supporters won't like

Liverpool legend Graeme Souness is adamant that Manchester City midfielder Kevin De Bruyne is better than Arsenal and Chelsea legends Dennis Bergkamp and Gianfranco Zola.

The Belgian playmaker arrived at the Etihad Stadium in 2015 from Wolfsburg for what was then a world record fee of £54m. After a pretty inconsequential stint with the Blues earlier in his career, many doubted why City had chosen to spend such a huge sum on him.

However, just under a decade later, the 32-year-old has proven himself many times over with exceptional displays for Pep Guardiola's team. To date, De Bruyne has registered 98 goals and 165 assists in 369 appearances for the Manchester club.

Such statistics have now opened up the debate as to where the midfielder ranks among the all-time Premier League players. When posed this question on Simon & Souness, the 70-year-old did not shy away from ruffling the feathers of Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United fans when he claimed the Belgian was better than not only Bergkamp and Zola but Eric Cantona too.

«Yeah. You’ve asked me and my immediate thought is yeah,» he confirmed. «They’re three class acts. But I think he is.

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»If you’re an Arsenal supporter, you’ll disagree. If you’re a Man United supporter, you’ll disagree. No Chelsea supporter is going to agree with me, no Man United supporter is going to agree with me. And no Arsenal supporter’s going to agree with me. But in my opinion, yeah."

Bergkamp managed 120 goals and 103 assists in 422 appearances for the Gunners, Zola bagged 80 goals and 38 assists in 312 Chelsea appearances while Cantona notched 95 goals and 67 assists in 217 appearances for United and Leeds during his career.

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