Hidden Man City race between four players in final five games will show Hugo Viana where to focus Kevin De Bruyne can still leave Manchester City with one final accolade - but it will take a huge effort in the final five games. Man City's new sporting director Hugo Viana (Image: UEFA via Getty Images ) There is a race among four Manchester City players for the final five games of the season that won't win any trophies but could define their future. Kevin De Bruyne has had a hold on the title of chief creator at City for a decade, taking the title of most assists in the Premier League for three of the seven seasons since the Playmaker Award was introduced. He has 177 assists for City in total, and is second on the all-time list in the Premier League behind Ryan Giggs, who is 43 ahead having played more than double De Bruyne's appearances. ‌ However, he won't earn one more Playmaker award given his seven assists this term compared to Mohamed Salah's 18. He faces a fight to even leave City as top assister in his own squad. ‌ In all competitions, Savinho leads the way with an impressive 12 assists in his debut season followed by Matheus Nunes with nine. De Bruyne and Jeremy Doku have eight apiece so he will need to take the matter into his own hands in the final five games of the season to overtake Savinho. City had six players reach double figures for assists last term, led by De Bruyne's 18. Rodri's 15 assists have been sorely missed this season as have Julian Alvarez's 14. That's almost 30 goals missing while De Bruyne is ten short of last year, Phil Foden and Bernardo Silva are seven shy and Erling Haaland has four fewer. Doku still has three to go to catch his 2023/24 total. Even with five games left, City are considerably short of their scoring rate of 12 months earlier. They have 106 goals from 52 games so far this season whereas last year's total from 59 games was 142. Article continues below City have decided to part ways with De Bruyne and with that will go a near-guarantee of 10-20 goal contributions. New Sporting Director Hugo Viana must work with Pep Guardiola to replace those, so Savinho's impact is welcome. So, too, is Omar Marmoush's seven goals and three assists from 17 appearances since signing. Marmoush is contributing a goal every 68 minutes and it was his corner that Josko Gvardiol powered in at Wembley. If he can replace Alvarez's goals and Erling Haaland stays fit, that's part of the problem solved straight away. Across his two clubs this season, Marmoush has 44 goal involvements at a faster rate than Haaland. Phil Foden will hopefully take some of De Bruyne's burden and the theory would be for Savinho and Doku's output to improve when Haaland returns (although Doku's record of providing for Haaland is poor). This season has shown, however, that City need someone from the middle to step up when De Bruyne goes. ‌ As for this season, De Bruyne has an outside chance of leaving with one more record. Savinho and Nunes will be doing their best to deny him. -- Here at The Manchester Evening News, we're dedicated to bringing you the best Manchester City coverage and analysis. Article continues below Make sure you don't miss out on the latest City news by joining our free WhatsApp group. You can get the club's breaking news and best analysis sent straight to your phone by clicking here to subscribe. You can also subscribe to our free newsletter service. Click here to be sent all the day's biggest stories. And, finally, if you'd rather listen to our expert analysis then make sure to check out our Talking City podcast. Our shows are available on all podcast platforms, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and you can also watch along on YouTube.