Ake was 'broken' after Mourinho dropped him from Chelsea's first-team squad

Ake told the Telegraph: "I went to the first team at Chelsea and played under Rafa Benitez and I always thought, 'why is everyone saying setbacks are coming because everything is going up, up, up?'

"The season after Benitez left I thought, 'this is going to be my season'.

"Then Jose Mourinho came and, without training, I got dropped into the second team.

"That was one of the toughest things for me, mentally. I was quite broken.

"Everything was going great, I played a few games, I was young player of the year and then I was in the reserves again."

Mourinho returned for his second spell at Chelsea in June 2013, succeeding Benitez, who had departed in the May after six months in the role as Roberto Di Matteo's replacement.

Ake, a regular start under Eddie Howe at Bournemouth this season, had loan spells at Reading and Watford during his time at Chelsea.

ga('create', 'UA-72310761-1', 'auto', {'name': 'pacontentapi'});
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'referrer', location.origin);
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension1', 'By Press Association Sport staff');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension2', '873866ce-478b-49ac-ba83-42b28a67e3a8');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension3', 'paservice:sport,paservice:sport:club-news,paservice:sport:football');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension6', 'story');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension7', 'composite');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension8', null);
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension9', 'sport:football');
ga('pacontentapi.send', 'pageview', { 'location': location.href, 'page': (location.pathname + location.search + location.hash), 'title': 'Ake was \u2018broken\u2019 after Mourinho dropped him from Chelsea\u2019s first-team squad'});