Kevin De Bruyne has just completed an outrageous hat-trick for Manchester City.Frankly, the stage was set for the Premier League champions to drop points with a trip to Molineux having proven troublesome in the past, particularly with the pressure of the title race weighing heavy.Liverpool might have left the door ajar with their 1-1 draw against Tottenham Hotspur over the weekend, but they turned up the tension once again by rebounding with a 2-1 win at Aston Villa.
A crazy hat-trick from De Bruyne
As such, you could rest assured that nerves were jangling amongst the City players as they got underway in the Black Country. Well, maybe everyone other than De Bruyne.
That's because City's star man scored one of the most remarkable hat-tricks in Premier League history, finding the back of the net three times from midfield with only 24 minutes on the clock.
Plus, just to make things even crazier, he scored all three goals with his weaker left foot for the third-earliest hat-trick in the history of England's top-flight since the 1992 rebranding.
Soccer Football - Premier League - Wolverhampton Wanderers v Manchester City - Molineux Stadium, Wolverhampton, Britain - May 11, 2022 Manchester City's Kevin De Bruyne celebrates scoring their first goal with Phil Foden and Bernardo Silva REUTERS/Peter Powell EDITORIAL USE ONLY. No use with unauthorized audio, video, data, fixture lists, club/league logos or 'live' services. Online in-match use limited to 75 images, no video emulation. No use in betting, games or single club /league/player publications. Please contact your account representative for further details.
Only Sadio Mane's record-breaking treble for Southampton and Dwight Yorke's iconic trio of goals against Arsenal were wrapped up quicker in a game than De Bruyne's masterpiece.
De Bruyne opens the scoring
In fact, the Belgian maestro got his work of art underway within just seven minutes, darting clear through on goal from Bernardo Silva's pass and finding the far bottom corner like it was nothing.
However, there was a twist in the tale for the Citizens as Leander Dendoncker pegged them back mere seconds later with an equalising goal that had Liverpool fans on their feet.
A second for KDB
On their feet until De Bruyne decided to show up again, that is, with City's wizard in chief restoring the lead with an emphatic finish capitalising on Jose Sa's lame attempt to scramble the ball away.
De Bruyne completes the hat-trick
Remarkably, though, the best was still to come as De Bruyne rounded off his 24-minute hat-trick of left-footed strikes by firing an absolute rocket past Sa from the edge of the penalty area.
You could just tell from the moment that De Bruyne wound up for yet another strike that the ball was destined for one place and one place only: the back of the net. Check out the goal below:
And do we even spy a reference to Erling Haaland there? It looks like De Bruyne is welcoming City's new signing with a cheeky rendition of his meditation celebration to soak up the hat-trick.
De Bruyne in a league of his own
What. A. Player.
It's no wonder that fans were joking about De Bruyne single-handedly winninng City the Premier League title because it pretty much felt as though he'd saved his teammates from a potential slip-up.
Making the trip to Europe-chasing Wolves has caught out Pep Guardiola's men on more than a few occasions, so it was really important for them to impose themselves on the game early on.
Soccer Football - Premier League - Wolverhampton Wanderers v Manchester City - Molineux Stadium, Wolverhampton, Britain - May 11, 2022 Manchester City's Kevin De Bruyne scores their third goal and his hat-trick REUTERS/Peter Powell EDITORIAL USE ONLY. No use with unauthorized audio, video, data, fixture lists, club/league logos or 'live' services. Online in-match use limited to 75 images, no video emulation. No use in betting, games or single club /league/player publications. Please contact your account representative for further details.
And they could hardly have achieved that in more spectacular fashion than arguably the Premier League's best player scoring a rapid-fire hat-trick only using his weaker foot. Absolute madness.