Manchester City star Kevin De Bruyne has revealed why he and Mohamed Salah struggled under Jose Mourinho at Chelsea. The Belgian adds that he does bother about why he was rejected by Mourinho and feels that his frustrating stint at Stamford Bridge became handy for his development.
De Bruyne was sold to Wolfsburg in January 2014 during Mourinho’s second spell at Chelsea. Now at Manchester City under the watchful eyes of Pep Guardiola, De Bruyne is the leading candidate to win the PFA Player of the Year award, along with Liverpool star Mohamed Salah, who also failed to convince the Portuguese tactician during his short spell at Stamford Bridge.
The Belgian feels that both he and Salah have benefited from playing in teams that fit their abilities.
“Obviously everyone needs to find a system and playing style that suits you more. Probably now we’ve found somebody who suits us both more than it was before,” De Bruyne was quoted by the Metro.
“I think in both our cases that’s true. But that’s the same for a lot of players.
“I think it’s just because it’s the same manager and it’s both of us in the same season who are going well that people are talking about it, but I think every manager will have had a lot of players who were not suited with each other who went away and did well afterwards.
“Maybe a lot of people are picking up on it now, today, but I’m not really that type of person who thinks about that. It’s just the way it goes, in life, in football.”
De Bruyne doesn’t want to prove a point to Mourinho, who is the head coach of Manchester United now.
“I really don’t care,” he continued. ‘It’s just part of football – it goes up and down. In the 10 years I’ve been playing, nine-and-a-half years have been up and a half-year has been a bit down,” De Bruyne concluded.
It was a massive mistake by Mourinho to not give enough chances to De Bruyne and Salah when he was in charge of our club. The Portuguese failed to understand the qualities of the aforementioned players and eventually ended up selling them abroad.
Both De Bruyne and Salah are now back in the Premier League and are wreaking havoc. While De Bruyne returned a couple of years ago, Salah has been a sensation since joining the Reds at the start of the season from AS Roma.
De Bruyne and Salah have had an extraordinary season with City and Liverpool respectively, and it’s very tough to predict who will go onto win the PFA Player of the Year award at the end of the season.
