Chelsea scout Piet de Visser has revealed he was angry when Kevin De Bruyne left Stamford Bridge, feeling that Jose Mourinho should have kept hold of the Belgian midfielder.
De Bruyne did not last long under Mourinho after growing unhappy at being pushed to the sidelines by the Portuguese boss. He eventually moved away from Chelsea to German side Wolfsburg, completing an £18m switch to the Bundesliga club in the 2014 winter transfer window.
The Belgian flourished at the Volkswagen Arena and was soon on his way back to the Premier League as last summer Manchester City agreed to pay an eye-watering £55m for the midfielder.
He has since proven he can more than cut it in the English top flight and veteran Chelsea talent spotter De Visser has lifted the lid on his views around the time of De Bruyne's sale.
"I was angry with Mourinho when De Bruyne left Chelsea", he told Belgian daily Het Laatste Nieuws.
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"We talked about it. Then he would say 'Piet, I find it a shame too, but the boy wants to leave. He doesn't want to train under me anymore'.
"I told him: 'Yes, the boy wants to play. He's ready for it'. I tried to convince him of Kevin's qualities, but then Mourinho repeated: 'Piet, he doesn't want to train'.
"I went to see a training session, Kevin was the best player on the pitch."
The scout explained that in his view the problem was Mourinho only wanted players he felt were fully developed to be involved in the team and the then Chelsea boss believed De Bruyne needed longer to ripen.
It was a view De Visser did not share and neither did De Bruyne.
"Look, Mourinho is a performance focused manager who has achieved a lot in his career. He wants to work with full developed players. He thought Kevin needed one, maybe two years.
"But Kevin was ready. And Kevin was convinced he was ready too", the scout added.
