Jose Mourinho has given his take as to why Kevin De Bruyne was sold from Chelsea to Wolfsburg during his tenure at Stamford Bridge.
Having joined the Blues in 2012, the Belgium superstar made only nine appearances for the London club and spent a season out on loan at Werder Bremen before Wolfsburg bought him for £18 million (R358 million) in 2014, with the playmaker then moving to Manchester City in a £52 million (R1 billion) deal just one year later.
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With many wondering how it was that Mourinho could let such a prodigious talent leave at the time, the Roma manager has now given his side of the story.
"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," he 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 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."
De Bruyne's recollection of the episode is very different, though, with the player revealing in 2019 how strangely he felt the manager had treated him.
"Jose called me into his office in December, and it was probably the second big life-changing moment for me. He had some papers in front of him, and he said, 'One assist. Zero goals. 10 recoveries.'," he wrote for The Players' Tribune.
"It took me a minute to understand what he was doing. Then he started reading the stats of the other attacking forwards – Willian, Oscar, [Juan] Mata, [Andre] Schurrle. And it's like – five goals, 10 assists, whatever.
"Jose was just kind of waiting for me to say something, and finally I said, 'But some of these guys have played 15, 20 games. I've only played three. So it's going to be different, no?"
It was soon after this exchange that the player decided to leave Chelsea in search of regular game time.
Scroll through the gallery below to see the most valuable players at the 2020 UEFA European Championship, including De Bruyne