Manchester City’s star midfielder Kevin De Bruyne has opened up about his relationship with current Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho when the pair worked together at Chelsea.
The Belgium international moved to Stanford Bridge from boyhood club Genk in 2012, but was immediately loaned out to Bundesliga side Werder Bremen.
After a successful season in Germany he returned to Chelsea, although he would only make a total of three Premier League appearances under Mourinho before the Portuguese coach sanctioned a permanent transfer to Wolfsburg.
De Bruyne would put in a series of superb displays for his new club, which caused Manchester City to fork out a club record £57 million to take him to the Etihad in the summer of 2015.
The 26-year-old has blossomed into a world class operator under Pep Guardiola, and is the favourite to win this seasons PFA Player of the Year award.
De Bruyne will come up against the man who sold him tomorrow when the Manchester Derby takes place at the Etihad, and speaking in the build up he described his relationship with his former boss and how he actually pushed through his transfer to Bremen in order to secure first team football.
“I would say…distant. I’m not really someone who speaks a lot with coaches.” De Bruyne said.
“I think if a coach wants to speak with you then you just do it. He’s the boss. You can be good with each other but still there’s distance between a coach and a player.”
“I only spoke with him twice, that’s when I wanted to leave to go to Dortmund in the beginning of the summer, and then the second meeting I just said, ‘for me it’s better to go, I want to play football’.”
