Jose Mourinho has accepted an offer to be Roma boss next season, but that hasn’t stopped him going on TalkSport to keep up his punditry duties.
Today they were asking him about his second spell at Chelsea, including the controversial decision to sell Kevin de Bruyne.
Clearly it was a mistake in hindsight, but as Mourinho insists, it made sense at the time.
In quotes from the radio show carried by Absolute Chelsea, he points out that he started the Belgian in the first game of the season, and after the second was confronted by him with demands for more minutes.
Jose Mourinho on Kevin De Bruyne:
“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 [#Chelsea’s] first match of the Premier League season he started against Hull City.”
[via @talkSPORT]
— Absolute Chelsea (@AbsoluteChelsea) June 22, 2021
Jose Mourinho on Kevin De Bruyne:
“He wanted to leave [#Chelsea], 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.”
[via @talkSPORT]
— Absolute Chelsea (@AbsoluteChelsea) June 22, 2021
Clearly Mourinho wasn’t prepared to offer those kind of guarantees, and decided to green-light a move to Wolfsburg.
Let’s be honest – not too many Blues fans were complaining at the time. Now, of course, it looks a terrible call. But in this case, we have some sympathy with Mou, who saw the talent but didn’t want a disruptive influence hanging around all season.
This is a laughable explanation of De Bruyne’s departure from a manager who made a gigantic mistake in selling a world class player. I estimate it cost us 1-2 PL titles at least. With Chelsea having sent him out on loan to Werder Bremen, I made it a point to catch all their live games on TV. De Bruyne was magnificent in just about every game. His record that season in the Bundesliga, despite being only 21, was 33 games 10 goals and 9 assists. It was obvious that this was a player that could potentially be spoken of in the same breath as Frank Lampard. And what became of that possibility – Jose gave him 3 games and sent him on his way. Pathetic! In the interview above, Jose seems to suggest that KDB wanted to play all the time. YES, what word class player doesn’t? No one can take away Jose’s wonderful achievements at the Bridge, but as we have seen over and again in his post-Chelsea career the man is only human. Selling De Bruyne was a colossal mistake.
It was a similar case with Sala. At the time it was the right decision. Du Bruyner was at the wrong time. Have to be honest, while there was no questioning Sala’s speed on the ball. He never knew how to control it.