Kevin De Bruyne

Good signs for next season. Mourinho doesn't know his onions any more.
You are so desperate to convince people that Mourinho turned into some Sunday league level manager in terms of decision making and ability to run a club. Name a manager who hasn't made a mistake in transfers or hasn't had a bad season or two. Hint: You won't be able to.
 
You are so desperate to convince people that Mourinho turned into some Sunday league level manager in terms of decision making and ability to run a club. Name a manager who hasn't made a mistake in transfers or hasn't had a bad season or two. Hint: You won't be able to.

Bit harsh on Bob. Yes, he is an absolutely terrible poster (nobody would argue) and a smug cnut, but he may be leaning correctly on this issue
 
It happens. Fergie let Pogba go and no one in here would complain if we paid 80m to sign him back.
Yeah and we keep getting reminded of this regularly by some United fans here almost every time Pogba touches a football. However I haven't read a single post here by the same ppl complaining about Mourinho since KDB has come back from injury and been brilliant.
 
There's certain players I always think why didn't United put a bid in, why let rivals get these players.

Aguero was one, Thiago Silva was another transfer years ago, Griezmann at Sociedad, Kroos leaving Bayern and the moment the De Bruyne rumours went around I thought.. United are fools in again.

I Just don't understand how bad United are in the transfer market.

Maybe United just didn't stand a chance against other offers in terms of prestige (Real) or money (City)?

I don't think United would have been able to get one of these mentioned, bar Griezmann.
 
Maybe United just didn't stand a chance against other offers in terms of prestige (Real) or money (City)?

I don't think United would have been able to get one of these mentioned, bar Griezmann.
That's a strange thing to say. You think United couldn't afford to pay £35m for Aguero, 40m Euro for Silva or £55m for De Bruyne?

For me the only two harder ones in that list is Kroos (why join Moyes over Real Madrid+Ancellotti) and perhaps De Bruyne(City looked more likely to win the title)
 
You are so desperate to convince people that Mourinho turned into some Sunday league level manager in terms of decision making and ability to run a club. Name a manager who hasn't made a mistake in transfers or hasn't had a bad season or two. Hint: You won't be able to.


It wasn't just a few mistakes. Mourinho torched Chelsea and basically created a mutiny with his narcisstic behavior.

It was so damn obvious how good De Bruyne was that it defies belief that Mourinho didn't give him continuous play.

Any two bit coach could have seen it.

Sure Chelsea won the league but Mou dragged him down to the relegation zone and it's going to take massive investment to get Chelsea back a competitive CL side.
 
It wasn't just a few mistakes. Mourinho torched Chelsea and basically created a mutiny with his narcisstic behavior.

It was so damn obvious how good De Bruyne was that it defies belief that Mourinho didn't give him continuous play.

Any two bit coach could have seen it.

Sure Chelsea won the league but Mou dragged him down to the relegation zone and it's going to take massive investment to get Chelsea back a competitive CL side.

You could say the same about Fergie and Pogba if you really wanted, especially given the state of our midfield.
 
To be fair De Bruyne improved considerably at Wolfsburg to become the top player he is today. Had he stayed at Chelsea things might have gone differently as his playing time would have been limited by Hazard, Oscar and Willian. Admittedly Mourinho should have probably gone for De Bruyne for Oscar but he valued Oscar's all around contribution (hence Mata transfer too).
 
To be fair De Bruyne improved considerably at Wolfsburg to become the top player he is today. Had he stayed at Chelsea things might have gone differently as his playing time would have been limited by Hazard, Oscar and Willian. Admittedly Mourinho should have probably gone for De Bruyne for Oscar but he valued Oscar's all around contribution (hence Mata transfer too).
Obviously he did, but he was already quality on loan for Bremen the season before he returned to Chelsea and already outperformed Hazard for Belgium during the qualifiers for the World Cup. Willian, Oscar, Schürrle got all significant playing time, even Mata played quite a bit even though it was obvious that Mourinho didn't rate him. De Bruyne played 132 minutes in the Premier League before he was sold in January. Chelsea bought Salah in January then to replace Mata and De Bruyne and guess what, he played significantly more in the 2nd half of the season than de Bruyne played in the first half of the season.

There's really no way to spin this. Mourinho fecked up.
 
It wasn't just a few mistakes. Mourinho torched Chelsea and basically created a mutiny with his narcisstic behavior.

It was so damn obvious how good De Bruyne was that it defies belief that Mourinho didn't give him continuous play.

Any two bit coach could have seen it.

Sure Chelsea won the league but Mou dragged him down to the relegation zone and it's going to take massive investment to get Chelsea back a competitive CL side.
very true. And people like to counter this by saying Fergie wasn't a saint. But they are very different. Ferguson is not a narcissist. Fergie would never throw his staff under he bus infront of the press(Eva Caneiro) and strip the youth coache's names off their shirts.
 
Obviously he did, but he was already quality on loan for Bremen the season before he returned to Chelsea and already outperformed Hazard for Belgium during the qualifiers for the World Cup. Willian, Oscar, Schürrle got all significant playing time, even Mata played quite a bit even though it was obvious that Mourinho didn't rate him. De Bruyne played 132 minutes in the Premier League before he was sold in January. Chelsea bought Salah in January then to replace Mata and De Bruyne and guess what, he played significantly more in the 2nd half of the season than de Bruyne played in the first half of the season.

There's really no way to spin this. Mourinho fecked up.
Of course it was a mistake, no two ways about it. Managers do this sometimes, Ferguson let Pogba go while playing Rafael and Park in midfield before even giving him a look.
 
You could say the same about Fergie and Pogba if you really wanted, especially given the state of our midfield.

Mourinho does this quite a bit though, as he doesn't really seem to be one to trust young players that much. Not sure how that would fly with the youth coming up currently in your team.
 
Of course it was a mistake, no two ways about it. Managers do this sometimes, Ferguson let Pogba go while playing Rafael and Park in midfield before even giving him a look.
I really think that's different and doesn't work at all as an example. Pogba was a very young youth player with no first team experience anywhere. He was 17 or 18 in that famous game when Rafael and Park played in midfield? De Bruyne was a regular for a good nationalteam performing really well, showed quality performances on a regular basis in one of the top leagues the season before and was 22 years old. You simply can't tell the latter to be patient at that stage of his development. If you rate him, you play him. The same isn't true for a 17 or 18 year old talent.
 
It was so damn obvious how good De Bruyne was that it defies belief that Mourinho didn't give him continuous play.

Any two bit coach could have seen it.

In fairness, you yourself weren't completely sure what De Bruyne's top level was, and you could see why Mourinho didn't fancy him:

I don't know about bang average. Inconsistent, sure, but he's not average. Hard to say exactly what his top level can be. I wouldn't take much stock in his brief Chelsea career as I think that was more of a conflict in what Mourinho wants of out his players and De Bruyne's mediocre tackling and defensive play.

He's young version of Paul Scholes. Can pick a pass, scores some wonder goals from distance. Clearly not at Scholes top level, but Belgium doesn't breeze through it's WC qualifying group without De Bruyne's goals, assists, and general midfield play. He's not a great tackler, but he runs everywhere.

He's the type of player that can carry a team offensively for decent stretches at time, but he needs to play every game to maintain his level.

I don't think Wolfsburg is his top level. That we'll find out in 2-3 years.
 
De Bruyne played really well in the first couple of games and then was dropped for a long period of time.

The problem is, Mourinho had so many attacking midfielders (All highly rated) and had chosen Oscar as his first choice and was trying to rotate all of them to see who he should keep. From what I gathered, when he wasn't playing as much as he would've liked, De Bruyne's training levels dropped significantly and he said to Mourinho that he could only train at 100% if he was starting games. Mourinho said that's not how he does things and that De Bruyne needed to show effort during training to start playing and De Bruyne didn't like that way of doing things.

Terrible judgement by Mourinho but oh well, he chose Oscar and now we are stuck with the prick.
 
De Bruyne played really well in the first couple of games and then was dropped for a long period of time.

The problem is, Mourinho had so many attacking midfielders (All highly rated) and had chosen Oscar as his first choice and was trying to rotate all of them to see who he should keep. From what I gathered, when he wasn't playing as much as he would've liked, De Bruyne's training levels dropped significantly and he said to Mourinho that he could only train at 100% if he was starting games. Mourinho said that's not how he does things and that De Bruyne needed to show effort during training to start playing and De Bruyne didn't like that way of doing things.

Terrible judgement by Mourinho but oh well, he chose Oscar and now we are stuck with the prick.

Mou was right though, De Bruyne needed to prove himself instead of talking shite. Sure good player, he isnt bigger than Mou or the club. Weird behaviour.
 
Mou was right though, De Bruyne needed to prove himself instead of talking shite. Sure good player, he isnt bigger than Mou or the club. Weird behaviour.
Yeah, I agree. I think his judgement was wring and he completely backed the wrong horse though.

It was a very recurring theme for him at Chelsea. Lots of very poor choices in hindsight and lots of players gotten rid of who were/are better then what we have now.

It never felt like we had the best manager in the world. He didn't seem to elevate the squad past any potential and the only way the team improved majorly was through transfers (Costa and Fabregas).
 
Yeah, I agree. I think his judgement was wring and he completely backed the wrong horse though.

It was a very recurring theme for him at Chelsea. Lots of very poor choices in hindsight and lots of players gotten rid of who were/are better then what we have now.

It never felt like we had the best manager in the world. He didn't seem to elevate the squad past any potential and the only way the team improved majorly was through transfers (Costa and Fabregas).

I predicted on here when you appointed him that he wasn't going to have much success this time around. IMO, Real broke him, he lost his confidence.
 
I predicted on here when you appointed him that he wasn't going to have much success this time around. IMO, Real broke him, he lost his confidence.
I keep trying to make this point. Mourinho has lost a lot of his aura. He now most of the time looks like a bitter man with a chip on his shoulder. The idea that he walks in here and success is pretty much guaranteed is naïve imo. He's not the saviour that everyone seems to think he is.
 
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I keep trying to make this point. Mourinho has lost a lot of his aura. He now most of the time looks like a bitter man with a chip on his shoulder. The idea that he walks in here and success if pretty much guaranteed is naïve imo. He's not the saviour that everyone seems to think he is.

Agreed, Pochettino is a better option, IMO.
 
Jose on De Brunye

“I wanted to keep him and he told me that it was not in his personality to be competing for a position in the team,” said Mourinho last summer. “He needed a team where he knows he can play every game. He needs to know that he is important. So I was not happy when he left.

“If you have a player knocking on your door and crying every day he wants to leave, you have to make a decision. At that time, Chelsea did well. If De Bruyne stayed here, not happy and not motivated, and we'd sold him after a year, we'd have got less - less than 50 per cent of what we sold him for. So we sold him.

“At that moment, it was very good business. Compare with today, and especially if somebody comes and pays for him what, one year ago, somebody would pay for Messi or Cristiano, it looks from the eyes of the world that it's bad business from us.

“But, if he was at Chelsea and not at Wolfsburg, he wouldn't have reached this level. It was like a wall, a block. He was not ready to compete. He was an upset kid, training very badly.”

De Brunye on the situation

“He called in all the attacking midfielders,” said De Bruyne. “He showed us the stats of his six players - assists, goals, passing percentage, key passes, dribbles. He wanted to prove I didn't perform on the level of the others.

I simply answered him: ‘Sorry, that's not logical. I've played less games than the others. How can you compare me to the others?’ That was just not fair in my eyes.”

 
Jose on De Brunye

“I wanted to keep him and he told me that it was not in his personality to be competing for a position in the team,” said Mourinho last summer. “He needed a team where he knows he can play every game. He needs to know that he is important. So I was not happy when he left.

“If you have a player knocking on your door and crying every day he wants to leave, you have to make a decision. At that time, Chelsea did well. If De Bruyne stayed here, not happy and not motivated, and we'd sold him after a year, we'd have got less - less than 50 per cent of what we sold him for. So we sold him.

“At that moment, it was very good business. Compare with today, and especially if somebody comes and pays for him what, one year ago, somebody would pay for Messi or Cristiano, it looks from the eyes of the world that it's bad business from us.

“But, if he was at Chelsea and not at Wolfsburg, he wouldn't have reached this level. It was like a wall, a block. He was not ready to compete. He was an upset kid, training very badly.”

De Brunye on the situation

“He called in all the attacking midfielders,” said De Bruyne. “He showed us the stats of his six players - assists, goals, passing percentage, key passes, dribbles. He wanted to prove I didn't perform on the level of the others.

I simply answered him: ‘Sorry, that's not logical. I've played less games than the others. How can you compare me to the others?’ That was just not fair in my eyes.”
The problem with Jose's version of events is that if you want to keep a player, you would at least give him a reasonable amount of game time. De Bruyne got zilch.
 
I predicted on here when you appointed him that he wasn't going to have much success this time around. IMO, Real broke him, he lost his confidence.

He found the Madrid experience tough, no doubt. But he outscored Pep's Barcelona in his first season and beat them 1-0 in The Copa del Rey final.

A year later, they won La Liga. Again, outscoring Barcelona.

During this two year spell, they reached two Champions League semi-finals.

The following season, they finished runners up in both La Liga and The Copa del Rey. It was Tito's Barcelona that outscored Real, not Pep's.

Mourinho put a lot of pressure on Guardiola who ended up leaving. Mourinho was unfortunate not to reach at least one Champions League final from three attempts. The fact that he didn't reach the final is what leaves a slight blemish on what was a very good spell at Madrid overall.

After one year of building his squad at Chelsea, they won a double the following season.

The man is a natural born winner. One bad call at Chelsea doesn't take away from his record.
 
To be fair De Bruyne improved considerably at Wolfsburg to become the top player he is today. Had he stayed at Chelsea things might have gone differently as his playing time would have been limited by Hazard, Oscar and Willian. Admittedly Mourinho should have probably gone for De Bruyne for Oscar but he valued Oscar's all around contribution (hence Mata transfer too).

He was the same player on loan at Bremen before returning to Chelsea.
 
He found the Madrid experience tough, no doubt. But he outscored Pep's Barcelona in his first season and beat them 1-0 in The Copa del Rey final.

A year later, they won La Liga. Again, outscoring Barcelona.

During this two year spell, they reached two Champions League semi-finals.

The following season, they finished runners up in both La Liga and The Copa del Rey. It was Tito's Barcelona that outscored Real, not Pep's.

Mourinho put a lot of pressure on Guardiola who ended up leaving. Mourinho was unfortunate not to reach at least one Champions League final from three attempts. The fact that he didn't reach the final is what leaves a slight blemish on what was a very good spell at Madrid overall.

After one year of building his squad at Chelsea, they won a double the following season.

The man is a natural born winner. One bad call at Chelsea doesn't take away from his record.

My point wasn't that Mourinho was a flop at Madrid. He did relatively well. But he involved himself in bitter personal conflicts with some of the influential people at the club, especilally some legendary players, and his ego was wounded, IMO. As a result, he lost a bit of his aura and confidence, the feeling that he's special. His decision making at Chesea 2 wasn't brilliant. In his first season, he was outperformed by Rodgers, in the sescond his team, reinforced with Cesc and Costa, did very well in the first half and then faded but managed to win the league and the league cup. The third season was a genuine catastrophe.
 
Personally, i think De Bruyne is the best attacking midfielder in the PL by some way when he is at his best. He will probably get better too, he is still fairly young. Would have loved to see him come to United last summer, but then LvG might have stymied all his skill and flair.
 


I like him even more now.. especially when he practically said he didn't give a feck who Oasis were (my interpretation) ..feck City..
 
He is very good but i still think he was massively overpriced. Every manager lets a player go and probably regrets it, hindsight is a wonderful thing. At the time KDB played like 3 times for Chelsea and they were offered an £11m profit on someone who they didnt play often for whatever reason, I would have accepted the bid too. I also would have accepted the £28m for Lukaku.
 
Fergie let Pogba go, different circumstances yes but both were mistakes
 
Fergie let Pogba go, different circumstances yes but both were mistakes

Indeed, also we let Rossi go, who would have went on to have a great career also if not for injury.
 
This guy is a bit like Rooney. When he's bad, he is really bad. Can look like a championship player at times.