Manchester City's record signing Kevin De Bruyne has revealed that manager Jose Mourinho only spoke to him on two occasions during his low-profile stint at Chelsea.
De Bruyne joined Wolfsburg in January 2014 after failing to cement a first-team place under the Portuguese, who had returned to Stamford Bridge for a second spell the previous summer.
The 52-year-old insisted that he was right to sell the playmaker - who joined the Sky Blues for £54m last month - but the Belgian says that things could have been different had Mourinho been more encouraging.
"I didn't get any explanation," he is quoted as saying by The Mirror. "I only talked with him twice, Mourinho. That was before the game against Basel, where he said I was doing better, in his opinion, and that I would get my chance. I think that was maybe November.
"And then one week before January. That's the day I said I wanted to go because even if I was training better, I wasn't getting any minutes. So for me personally, it was better to go.
"I think it's the most difficult thing for a player when they say you're doing good. That's what you read in the press, but you don't know what you are doing wrong. That was maybe the biggest part that went wrong."
De Bruyne, who joined the Bundesliga side for £18m, only made five starts for the West Londoners.
Shane Callaghan
