Manchester City star Kevin de Bruyne has insisted he doesn’t hate Jose Mourinho, despite their ill-fated spell together at Chelsea.
De Bruyne arrived at Chelsea in a £7.2m deal from Genk as a highly-rated youngster back in 2012 as part of the club’s ongoing efforts to scoop up the best young talent around the world.
He would go on to make just nine appearances and 425 minutes of action for the club, though, as then-manager Jose Mourinho refused to give the club’s youngsters their chance.
He was loaned back to Genk after originally arriving and then to Werder Bremen the following year.
By January 2014, he had been sold in a permanent exit, sealing a £19.8m move to Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga.
He went on to establish himself as one of the best young players in the world with the German club, later sealing a £68.4m move to Manchester City in 2015.
Since then, he’s become one of, if not the best, midfielder in world football, making Chelsea’s decision to not use him and sell him look a foolish one.
The blame has mostly been put on Mourinho’s doorstep, but De Bruyne insists he does not hold any hard feelings.
“They (Chelsea) really wanted to keep me and give me a chance but I actually wanted to go to Dortmund,” Het Nieuwsblad report him saying.
“I had a good feeling about that, and I always decide by feeling. I did play a bit at Chelsea, but away at Swindon in the cup… That was really dramatic.
“I hadn’t played for a month, and then you have to play against a League 2 club like that. After that, it was over.
“I never went to Jose Mourinho. I trained hard; I showed enough. But it’s a football myth that if you train well, you get chances. That is not true. I left it hanging a bit because I didn’t see a chance to play anymore, but then I learned to behave differently sometimes.
“And that you can get out of such a situation. But I didn’t see that then. I just wanted to leave. And I don’t hate Mourinho either, I’m not a little kid. It just didn’t work out then.”
