🇧🇪 Kevin de Bruyne

[Barbara 15,149]

Yeah, but it is easy to get biased if you don't have the full picture. Anyway, im still pretty sure Mourinho made the right decision in hindsight, and that Oscar fits better when in form (in our system). Sometimes he's too quick in judgement about certain kind of players though. Im pretty sure that most members would rather have players like Mata/KDB/Schürrle/Luiz in favor of players like Salah, Cuadrado, Mikel, and Ramires.

Absolutely. But he also doesn't like to go against players' wishes. Most of those guys weren't happy with their sub status in the team, especially ahead of the WC, and Mourinho is just too proud and has a big ego, so he won't try to convince them to change their minds. I actually believe we made a mistake letting Schurrle go (even if he asked to leave) and I think the timing for Kev was off. He'd really fit our system, but his personality and Mourinho's wad always going to clash. Had he come later, more mature and established, I think it would have worked. Mourinho may need to be more flexible.

[CurlyHairLikeLuiz 1,625]

I doubt he would turn down the chance to work with Mou again, but the club won't buy him back, simply because we aren't a spending club anymore now our team is rebuilt and young blood coming through. For the WC 2018 there could easily be a Chelsea spine in place; Cahill; RLC; Colkett; Bamford or Solanke. I remember somebody mentioning Boga being eligible to play for England too no idea about that.

My point is that Mou is relying on the team to mature while finding an in house solution to that CM and rw problem.

[Unionjack 7,531]

Be good if Oscar could score 10 goals and give 22 assists

KdB was just another young talented player with a very big ego who thought he had done enough to deserve to be starting each game. Thers many players with big egos and theres nothing wrong with that if theyre as good as they think they are.

But you watch any player who gets benched for no apparent reason. They all go into a strop. And IF they really are as good as they think then you cant really blame them if they want to go play somewhere that they will start. And its the same if they want silverware. They will play somewhere that they can win if theyve that much ambition.

Just watch Eden if we go silverware less. That lads got an ego and full of ambition.

[Bir_CFC 3,455]

Actually I think the whole story isn't so difficult to understand.

KDB had a great preseason & a good start of the season. After the dreadful team performance against Man U, Mourinho dropped KDB from the team.

KDB probably thought he was the one to blame and got picked on. This was clearly not the case and could never be Mou's intention.

Eventually this got off to a bad chemistry between Mou & KDB. Probably also shown in training. Which resulted in more bench time and eventually he was even dropped out of the team.

You can blame KDB for sure for not fighting for his spot and leaving this 'non issue saga' behind him. But you can also easily blame Mou for letting it get so far.

Clearly this was a non issue. Mou just had to talk with KDB (like all good managers do) and tell him what was happening (KDB mentioned in several interviews that MOU NEVER ever spoke to him!!).

If he would have talked to him about this thing, none of this would have happened. KDB would be in the team again and would have probably played a great season.

A manager should not run behind his players. A player who feels bad, needs to deal with this himself. However... if, as a manager, you feel things are going to wrong way... You need to take action. I can only think that Mou is just to stubborn or proud to deal with such items. And for me this is just bad management. This was a non issue that eventually led to KDB leaving the club!

Of course the factor World Cup year was a massive one in this story. Any other year... none of this would probably have happened.

BUT if KDB would return to the EPL for fucking 80million(!!!)... and he becomes decisive for Man City, there are only 2 conclusion to this story

• Mou is stubborn and this bad management led to a missed opportunity of around of 60 million(!!!) => Wolfsburg says Thank You Mucho!
• But most importantly: we lost a great player because of this whole 'non issue'. And f** yeah we could have used him!!!!!!

I hope lesson are learned out of this!

I don't believe the manager should be telling a player why he did and didn't pick. You want him to go to each player before every matchday to tell him why he didn't pick him? A manager is supposed to explain his decisions to the players?

Mou himself has said that he NEVER talks to players about his selections for this very reason. But, if they want to talk, his door is open.

If I'm a player and I want to know why I wasn't chosen, I go and ask the manager. To expect the manager to come tell me why he didn't pick me is ridiculous and should not be expected.

And I don't think Mou didn't pick him cause he was stubborn or something. If Mou thought he was good enough he would have picked him. If he wanted to keep him he would have played him and convinced KDB to stay. There is no way Mou would be fine with losing a player he wants to keep.

[Barbara 15,149]

I don't believe the manager should be telling a player why he did and didn't pick. You want him to go to each player before every matchday to tell him why he didn't pick him? A manager is supposed to explain his decisions to the players?

Mou himself has said that he NEVER talks to players about his selections for this very reason. But, if they want to talk, his door is open.

If I'm a player and I want to know why I wasn't chosen, I go and ask the manager. To expect the manager to come tell me why he didn't pick me is ridiculous and should not be expected.

And I don't think Mou didn't pick him cause he was stubborn or something. If Mou thought he was good enough he would have picked him. If he wanted to keep him he would have played him and convinced KDB to stay. There is no way Mou would be fine with losing a player he wants to keep.

sometimes it seems people expect managers to be nannies, instead of your boss who doesn't have to justify his every choice.

Do their bosses do that in their work? Managers aren't babysitters and if someone's so fragile he can't handle being dropped once, well, then there's a further problem.

I do believe Mourinho could have showed more patience, but the kid wanted to leave and Mourinho - being proud the way he is - didn't bother to talk to him and convince him to stay. That's the conversation that could have happened (the one when Kevin asked to leave), but I agree with you, having to justify his choices all the time isn't something any manager do. I don't get this idea that good managers would have done that.

[Stats 7,142]

Yeah, but it is easy to get biased if you don't have the full picture. Anyway, im still pretty sure Mourinho made the right decision in hindsight, and that Oscar fits better when in form (in our system). Sometimes he's too quick in judgement about certain kind of players though. Im pretty sure that most members would rather have players like Mata/KDB/Schürrle/Luiz in favor of players like Salah, Cuadrado, Mikel, and Ramires.

I am on one of those who acknowledge Oscar has been very inconsistent but I am not in the camp calling for him to leave because I think he will be a big player for this season and hopefully many more however I do not see how he fits in our system better than KDB. I can understand you saying that about Mata because he cannot run and track back however KDB has vision, dribbling, stamina and pretty much everything. He would have been perfect once he got into his rythm. He is like a complete no.10.

[iseah100 5,612]

I am on one of those who acknowledge Oscar has been very inconsistent but I am not in the camp calling for him to leave because I think he will be a big player for this season and hopefully many more however I do not see how he fits in our system better than KDB. I can understand you saying that about Mata because he cannot run and track back however KDB has vision, dribbling, stamina and pretty much everything. He would have been perfect once he got into his rythm. He is like a complete no.10.

He didn't want to wait. Damn shame

[Atholy 1,293]

I don't believe the manager should be telling a player why he did and didn't pick. You want him to go to each player before every matchday to tell him why he didn't pick him? A manager is supposed to explain his decisions to the players?

Mou himself has said that he NEVER talks to players about his selections for this very reason. But, if they want to talk, his door is open.

If I'm a player and I want to know why I wasn't chosen, I go and ask the manager. To expect the manager to come tell me why he didn't pick me is ridiculous and should not be expected.

And I don't think Mou didn't pick him cause he was stubborn or something. If Mou thought he was good enough he would have picked him. If he wanted to keep him he would have played him and convinced KDB to stay. There is no way Mou would be fine with losing a player he wants to keep.

sometimes it seems people expect managers to be nannies, instead of your boss who doesn't have to justify his every choice.

Do their bosses do that in their work? Managers aren't babysitters and if someone's so fragile he can't handle being dropped once, well, then there's a further problem.

I do believe Mourinho could have showed more patience, but the kid wanted to leave and Mourinho - being proud the way he is - didn't bother to talk to him and convince him to stay. That's the conversation that could have happened (the one when Kevin asked to leave), but I agree with you, having to justify his choices all the time isn't something any manager do. I don't get this idea that good managers would have done that.

Pardon me, I never said Mou should justify all his choices. Nor did I say he needs to run behind players before/after every game to tell them why they were/weren't picked in the team => absolutely NOT!

My whole point is... there is a moment where you feel this is getting a real problem. And this is not after 2 days, a week or even 2 weeks. But if you see after a month, 2 months or more... that things are not working well because such a stupid non event, management should take action! IMO this was the case with KDB.

And this is not even Mou's fault, the whole management team failed IMO in the KDB case and is to blame.

You can then say... well it's KDB's loss. Mou is the boss., he's a loser. Too bad for him because he could've been playing for our great team.

But in this case this little boy just became one of Europe's best players just after he left Cobham.

So yeah, in the KDB story... this is OUR loss! We f** had one of the best AM of the world in our squad and lost him because of 'bad communication' and stubbornness of our management team.

Be honest for a second... If KDB wouldn't have been a chelsea player, the transfer talk section would be full of: "this is the player we need, get him for 50million, 70 million, etc.".

This is always our loss!!

[Oscar 441]

You guys are pretty quiet after KDB's shit showing vs arsenal

[Pizy 18,907]

You guys are pretty quiet after KDB's shit showing vs arsenal

Why would Chelsea fans be watching an Arsenal preseason friendly?

[Oscar 441]

Why would Chelsea fans be watching an Arsenal preseason friendly?

too see the competition.

I watch every united game so far and other ICC games

[Barbara 15,149]

You guys are pretty quiet after KDB's shit showing vs arsenal

I don't think his quality has ever been questioned. This is preseason, not the right time or place to evaluate players' quality.

[Pizy 18,907]

too see the competition.

I watch every united game so far and other ICC games

If ever there was an example of preseason being meaningless it was yesterday when United beat Barca.

[Oscar 441]

If ever there was an example of preseason being meaningless it was yesterday when United beat Barca.

WHY? Barca showed they are are 10x better than united yesterday, just unlucky by the score line.

Barcelona absolutely demolished their midfield with the so called great Morgan S, Carrick and young and mata on the wings...

[OhForAGreavsie 6,073]

You guys are pretty quiet after KDB's shit showing vs arsenal

I don't think his quality has ever been questioned. This is preseason, not the right time or place to evaluate players' quality.

I think I'm KDB's biggest fan around here and suspect that, barring our Belgian members, I've watched him play more often than anyone else who posts here. I watched him play for Genk after he had been signed and loaned back, I watched every game he played for Bremen which didn't clash with our fixtures and I watched every Belgium international for two seasons. Internationals during which he pretty much always outplayed Eden.

I became a fan because I was so impressed with what I saw from KDB during those five months for Genk. I believed that the talent he demonstrated gave him a chance to be a formidable contributor for Chelsea. There was a lot to admire in his play; his awareness around the box, his tremendous range of passing, brilliant shooting and his top of the line crosses. Here's the thing however, I've seldom been so impressed with him since.

Kevin attracted a lot of praise for his efforts at Bremen but undeservedly so in my opinion. There were good displays of course in the 20 odd performances I saw but, while I acknowledge that most people remember this differently, in my opinion there were also some dreadful ones. There were many times when I felt sure KDB would be dropped by Thomas Schaff after outings that featured sloppy passing, ineffective decisions, and serious tactical indiscipline. He never was benched however.

There was a brief moment when my optimism returned after that amazing assist against Hull at The Bridge. It had a beautiful simplicity and absolute perfection that encapsulated what I liked about KDB in the first place. Unfortunately my hopes that we would see Genk Kevin were dashed and I felt that what we saw in a Chelsea shirt was the Werder Bremen version. By the time Jose allowed him to leave, I was forced to admit that it was probably the right decision.

Since then I've only seen Kevin in internationals and in four games for Wolfsburg. In just one of those, vs Bayern, did he play well. Admittedly he was spectacular in that match but Bayern were amateurish and played directly into Kevin's strengths. They got exactly what they deserved as he tore them apart.

The upshot is that I think KDB flatters to deceive and I would be surprised if he is able to repeat the incredible statistical output he achieved last season. As I say, I'm a big fan and I'd be delighted if he does but in the end I don't think Kevin is as good as those numbers make him appear to be.

[OneMoSalah 8,886]

He never done it in a Chelsea shirt. He played shit against Swindon and was sent to train with the u21s, I don't care if hes the best attacking midfielder in Germany now or not he made an absolute mess of his chance here. Wolfsburg aren't a top top club, Chelsea is. I still don't regret selling him, the only guy who I am gutted we sold is Robben because although he wanted to go he turned out to be amazing.

[LAM09 7,051]

He'll be off to Bayern or City during this window.

[Oscar 441]

He'll be off to Bayern or City during this window.

THERE is 0 chance he signs for Munich this window and zero chance munich will pay 60m for KDB ever.

Munich signed Costa and Vidal and Kimmich this summer.

[LAM09 7,051]

THERE is 0 chance he signs for Munich this window and zero chance munich will pay 60m for KDB ever.

I'm not sure about any rumoured fee, but I can see him replacing Gotze if he leaves.

[Oscar 441]

I'm not sure about any rumoured fee, but I can see him replacing Gotze if he leaves.

GOTZE doesnt start on munich