Robbie Fowler says player who left Liverpool in 2015 was genuinely better than Man City’s Kevin De Bruyne

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Kevin De Bruyne is undoubtedly one of the greatest players to have ever graced the Premier League.

Since signing for Manchester City in 2015, De Bruyne has dominated English football in a way not many players have in history — winning six league titles and the Champions League in a treble-winning season among other pieces of silverware while playing at the highest possible level.

Arsene Wenger rightly lauded De Bruyne for being “exceptional” during his time in England, who has been one of the best players in the world for over a decade now.

While not many players in Premier League history are comparable to Kevin De Bruyne, one former stalwart who can be pitted against the Belgian is Steven Gerrard.

Gerrard, described as “unbelievable” by Harvey Elliott also enjoyed an outstanding career at Liverpool and is similar regarded as one of the best midfielders the English game has ever seen as well.

With both De Bruyne and Steven Gerrard raising the bar for midfielders across not just English but world football, it is difficult to determine which player is truly superior.

Steven Gerrard named better than Kevin De Bruyne

However, Robbie Fowler reckons Gerrard is a better midfielder than not just De Bruyne but other legendary figures such as Frank Lampard and Paul Scholes.

Rafael Benitez marvelled at Steven Gerrard’s completeness, a facet of his game that Fowler believes sets him apart from the rest.

Robbie Fowler said on talkSPORT: “You look at world-class players and you’ve mentioned Frank Lampard, unbelievable, great player, [Paul] Scholes, he was a great player, [Kevin] De Bruyne’s unbelievable, who else did you mention? All great players, I mean, all unbelievable players.”

“But Steven Gerrard was incredible, he did everything.”

“I love Steven as a player and look, there’s a conversation, we’re talking about great players and [Wayne] Rooney is incredible but we’re talking about midfielders and in their prime and if I had to pick any player out of all them, I’m picking Steven.”

De Bruyne, once lauded by Virgil van Dijk is quite similar to Steven Gerrard in various areas such as being able to takes games by the scruff of the neck, blending an extraordinary range of passing with the ability to carry the ball at will, having an incredible strike on him and a stocky frame that makes him difficult to bully. It could be argued that the pair are two of the Premier League’s finest-ever midfielders.

Steven Gerrard and Kevin De Bruyne compared

De Bruyne has the edge over Gerrard as a creative presence and in terms of the trophies he has won.

In terms of his productivity as well, De Bruyne has 188 goal involvements while Gerrard had 212 despite the former playing a little over half the games the latter played in the Premier League.

But defensively and in terms of playing in deeper areas, the Englishman was the better player, notably operating as a deep-lying playmaker and performing exceptionally under Brendan Rodgers.

Furthermore, it could be argued that Gerrard, who also played as a full-back and out wide for Liverpool was a more versatile player.

Ultimately, both players in question are not just Premier League legends but icons of the game as a whole.

Perhaps De Bruyne and Gerrard never played with each other because that simply seems too good to be true.