‘Don’t blame me’- Mourinho reveals the ‘real secret’ behind De Bruyne’s exit at Chelsea as club sell him for £18m
Manchester City star Kevin De Bruyne was a Chelsea player some years ago, but was sold under Mourinho to Wolfsburg for just £18m.
However, Lots of Chelsea fans still blames Jose Mourinho for De Bruyne’s exit at Stamford Bridge
The Belgium International made only nine appearances for the Blues before moving on loan to Werder Bremen for two years and then an eventual sale to Wolfsburg for £18m. Just one year after the sale, Manchester City bought De Bruyne for a massive fee of £52m. By then, he had already become a superstar signing, and is now seen as one of the best players in the world.
According to Mourinho, De Bruyne wasn’t ready to bid his time into a star-studded Chelsea team despite having started the first two games of the season.
“He impressed me so much I made the decision I don’t want this kid to go on loan, I want him to stay, and in our first match of the Premier League season he started against Hull City,” Mourinho told talkSPORT.
“In the second match we got to Old Trafford and after this he come to me and said, ‘I want to play every match, I want to play every minute’. He put a lot of pressure on that.
“He wanted to leave, he wanted to go to Germany where he was previously on loan and so happy, and his decision was to go. He put big pressure on that and it worked very well for him.
“The story is there and the quality of the player is absolute, he is top five in the world.”
“When he was supposed to leave on loan and I made the decision for him to stay, I saw those qualities. He did not have the experience and maturity he has now, but his feet and his vision was already there,” he continued.
“He knew very well what he wanted and he was not ready to have that season at Chelsea where a lot of good players were in the same team, he didn’t have the patience.
“He was not ready for that, he was coming from a season in Germany where he was playing every minute of every match.
“Sometimes us coaches make mistakes, but that was not the case. I saw he had the potential to do it, but he just knew perfectly well what he wanted.”
De Bruyne definitely knew his worth as a player, and has now gone on to win three Premier League titles, five League Cups and the FA Cup in six years at the Etihad. He has also won the Premier League’s PFA Player of the Year twice.