De Bruyne gives Manchester City a win over Leicester in the absence of Haaland

Belgian Kevin De Bruyne scored a superb free kick that gave defending champion Manchester City a difficult victory over its host Leicester City 1-0, Saturday, in the fourteenth stage of the English Premier League, despite the absence of his colleague, the lethal Norwegian striker, Erling Halland, due to injury.

City temporarily jumped to the top with 29 points from 12 games, one point behind Arsenal, who hosts bottom club Nottingham Forest on Sunday.

In the first half, Leicester coach Brendan Rodgers managed to contain the champion who dominated possession.

Leicester's Welsh goalkeeper Danny Ward stood in the face of German captain Ilkay Gundogan, Spain's Rodri, Portugal's Bernardo Silva, and De Bruyne.

Manchester Haaland, 22, missed the top scorer with 17 goals, a wide difference from his closest rival, Harry Kane (10), and he was replaced by the young Argentine Julian Alvarez, next summer from River Plate, while Phil Foden and Algerian Riyad Mahrez sat on the bench.

Halland was out at half-time against Borussia Dortmund in the middle of the week in the Champions League with a foot injury, and his team is missing Kyle Walker and Calvin Phillips, at least until the World Cup.

At the beginning of the second half, De Bruyne played a deadly diamond that flew over the human wall and inhabited the far right scissors (49), scoring his third goal this season.

Of his 60 goals in the English Premier League, the Belgium star scored 25 from outside the region (42%), compared to 55%, for example, for David Beckham and 44% for Danish Christian Eriksen.

Belgian Yuri Tielemans almost equalized quickly, but his beautiful volleyball from outside the area was turned by Brazilian goalkeeper Ederson to the crossbar (53).

In the time of lost, Leicester almost equalized with a comical goal, but a ball that was spared by defender John Stones bounced off the face of his fellow Portuguese substitute defender Ruben Diach very close to Ederson's right post (90+1), to end the meeting with City's ninth victory in 12 games.

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