Kevin de Bruyne

[Barbara 15,149]

De Bruyne is a flat track bully who only turns up against smaller teams and not the bigger ones?

Seems 'strange' coming from some people when they probably didn't mind Fabregas doing the same thing last season.

Didn't know once you have an opinion about one player you can't about other. You guys are cute

I've always acknowledged Cesc's limitations and continue to do and I did say it was enough - about both Kev and Cesc.

But very cute anyway

[Barbara 15,149]

You need flat track bullies in your team, honestly.

Definitely! It wasn't a criticism, but a pattern I see. He's played how many big games, big teams or difficult teams and people keep bringing the one match against Bayern...

I think he's a great player, I said many times he could mature his game and start shining in big teams. Right now he isn't there yet which is okay.

I don't like his posture and attitude and Jose, Wolfsburg and Belgium managers have all commented on his attitude, but I'd get him back in a heartbeat, something I wouldn't do about any of other ex-players mentioned here. Bertrand, Luiz, Mata, Lukaku weren't, aren't and hardly will be ever be Chelsea level. They're at most squad players, but as we have many players who also aren't good enough is fashionable overestimate the players that aren't here anymore.

Kdb was the only player worth keeping, but he wanted to leave because he didn't accept the bench. Whether Mourinho made a mistake or not, whether Kev should have fought for his place further or not, it doesn't matter now. Both are gone and it won't change.

What sometimes bothers me is how we worship players we let go, overlooking their limitations and stressing and sometimes even exaggerating their quality - like Mata, for example, who never really did anything special at Utd - for the sake of highlighting what in their opinion bad business. Don't know if this trend is new or has always been like this. This happens all the time on football, I don't know why people don't get over it.

So, for the record, I'd have Kev back any time, although I don't sugarcoat his attitude when he left. He's an upgrade on any AM we have now, especially if you can keep him happy.

[Hybrid Angel 2,130]

Wouldn't have been that annoyed if we got rid of him for a proper alternative. The fact that we have an average player like Oscar taking on the responsibility is what makes me livid.

[The Mak 4,459]

The guy did get a shot here but he wanted more. That's fair enough and José accommodated that wish by allowing him to leave.

Yes it would be lovely to have kept him and hindsight is 20/20 for those wishing to rake over past mistakes but the interesting discussion is surely on how we learn from this going forward.

2 league starts in half a season is a 'shot'? I suppose RLC has had his 'shot' then as well?!? By that logic, I suppose we should ship him on in January.

And 'hindsight'? This is the guy who was touted as Lampard's ready made replacement since he was signed, more specifically, after his stint at Bremen. The potential was there. The vast majority of people here could see it - but José couldn't? Because he didn't run around as much as Oscar?

It is far more than just 'hindsight' behind the reason why people are still angry about letting him go...

I still see him as a player who shines against small teams and disappears against big or decent ones. This thread went literally 2 weeks without any post when I prompted it. I knew the moment he smashed an almighty team like Sunderland it would come to life again. As I said, it's enough to shine against small teams. Thing is people say a lot about how our current team is awful, but City with their great team, is rallying after Leicester and Arsenal. Even if Pellegrini is a moron, the quality of the team alone should have them carrying away with the title. But they didn't exactly show a lot against big or decent teams have they?

On the other hand, I do admit I'm not looking forward to them having Guardiola though.

I would love to know who your ideal attacking midfielder is...besides the likes of Hazard and Neymar of course. I'm not making slight of you when I say this (I respect all of your posts). Honestly, I would just love to know due to your previous praise of Oscar (when Mourinho started favouring him over Mata) and Fabregas. Because, if I remember correctly, you think that:

Mata - needs a team built around him.

KDB - only plays well against small teams.

Both of those players would be vast upgrades on Oscar right now.

For me, Mata doesn't need a team built around him. He just needs to not be under a manager that plays shit football while playing him on the wing (sounds very familiar). We also never got to see him with Matic in behind him.

Say what you want about KDB, but we are halfway through the season and the boy has 10 goals and 10 assists in 23 appearances. If that is not Lampard territory, I don't know what is. And at 24 years of age?! I'm sorry, but that is fucking scary. Particularly when you consider Frank's tally for us at that age was a total of 8 goals in an entire season...plenty of room to become a 'big game player' wouldn't you say?

[Spike 12,049]

Heh, Chelsea sold two of the best crossers in the league to both Manchester clubs.

[Reddish-Blue 2,354]

2 league starts in half a season is a 'shot'? I suppose RLC has had his 'shot' then as well?!? By that logic, I suppose we should ship him on in January.

And 'hindsight'? This is the guy who was touted as Lampard's ready made replacement since he was signed, more specifically, after his stint at Bremen. The potential was there. The vast majority of people here could see it - but José couldn't? Because he didn't run around as much as Oscar?

It is far more than just 'hindsight' behind the reason why people are still angry about letting him go...

I would love to know who your ideal attacking midfielder is...besides the likes of Hazard and Neymar of course. I'm not making slight of you when I say this (I respect all of your posts). Honestly, I would just love to know due to your previous praise of Oscar (when Mourinho started favouring him over Mata) and Fabregas. Because, if I remember correctly, you think that:

Mata - needs a team built around him.

KDB - only plays well against small teams.

Both of those players would be vast upgrades on Oscar right now.

For me, Mata doesn't need a team built around him. He just needs to not be under a manager that plays shit football while playing him on the wing (sounds very familiar). We also never got to see him with Matic in behind him.

Say what you want about KDB, but we are halfway through the season and the boy has 10 goals and 10 assists in 23 appearances. If that is not Lampard territory, I don't know what is. And at 24 years of age?! I'm sorry, but that is fucking scary. Particularly when you consider Frank's tally for us at that age was a total of 8 goals in an entire season...plenty of room to become a 'big game player' wouldn't you say?

I don't see how you would fit Mata into the current Chelsea team (without selling Fabregas)

[Barbara 15,149]

2 league starts in half a season is a 'shot'? I suppose RLC has had his 'shot' then as well?!? By that logic, I suppose we should ship him on in January.

And 'hindsight'? This is the guy who was touted as Lampard's ready made replacement since he was signed, more specifically, after his stint at Bremen. The potential was there. The vast majority of people here could see it - but José couldn't? Because he didn't run around as much as Oscar?

It is far more than just 'hindsight' behind the reason why people are still angry about letting him go...

I would love to know who your ideal attacking midfielder is...besides the likes of Hazard and Neymar of course. I'm not making slight of you when I say this (I respect all of your posts). Honestly, I would just love to know due to your previous praise of Oscar (when Mourinho started favouring him over Mata) and Fabregas. Because, if I remember correctly, you think that:

Mata - needs a team built around him.

KDB - only plays well against small teams.

Both of those players would be vast upgrades on Oscar right now.

For me, Mata doesn't need a team built around him. He just needs to not be under a manager that plays shit football while playing him on the wing (sounds very familiar). We also never got to see him with Matic in behind him.

Say what you want about KDB, but we are halfway through the season and the boy has 10 goals and 10 assists in 23 appearances. If that is not Lampard territory, I don't know what is. And at 24 years of age?! I'm sorry, but that is fucking scary. Particularly when you consider Frank's tally for us at that age was a total of 8 goals in an entire season...plenty of room to become a 'big game player' wouldn't you say?

As I said in a reply a bit before your post, I'd have Kevin. I think he's great. The thing is the thread can get annoying (with the ex-player cult we now have here), not that I don't like or that I wouldn't have Kev. There's no need for him to be a big game player - ever or yet. It doesn't take away from his quality, it'd be a plus if he shone in those kind of matches too.

A midfield of Willian, Kev and Hazard would have been perfect in my opinion. I also rate James Rodriguez a lot and I really like Silva, Özil and others.

I completely disagree about Mata. The amount of excuses made to him under many managers - Mourinho, Moyes, van Gaal is a pile as tall as the Big Ben. Always an excuse, if not the managers - who aren't up to him, it's the position he plays, the players he has around him, the system that exposes him, the kind of opposition, etc. Yeah, exactly, that's all the problems he has and we have one player that is very similar to that who has everyone here badmouthing his limitations (although he's also in terrible form), which is Cesc. As I said, if we need to have such special conditions for Mata to shine, which was only special when he had the team built around him - otherwise he has ups and downs, well, that makes him unnecessary. We already have plenty of squad players in our team, we don't need to bring yet another one.

The thing is I think we need players that would make us progress as a team - Kev is one of them - not simply improve our squad. We're beyond simply improving, because while Mata would be an improvement to almost all options we have, he wouldn't make us progress as a team. We wouldn't become title contenders because Mata would fix our problems. I understand his widowers want him back and for emotional reasons I'd understand if we had a competitive team, then he'd be a luxury player we'd bring back because of our emotional connection to him, but it's about time we bring ourselves to the level of squads such as Bayern, Real and City. Barcelona seem too far away, but we need to make progress right now and the only player we dismissed or accepted to leave that would bring us that is Kevin de Bruyne.

Bertrand, Luiz and Lukaku are a joke if people believe those are the kind of players that will take Chelsea to the next level. The thing is we have so many ordinary and average players all over our squad, that people are settling for players as ordinary and average - if not worse - simply because we had them go.

We don't need to bring those guys back, to regret letting them go, we need to let go of all the rest average players we have: Ivanovic, Cahill, Oscar, Pedro, Mikel, Ramires and if possibly get improvements on Terry, Matic, Costa and even Willian. I think these could be squad players, but those others should just leave like Mata, Luiz, Bertrand, Lukaku, Schurrle and others had. We need to decide which size we want to be and that depends a lot on the profile of player we keep and the profile of player we let go.

[SoulTaker 46]

Wow, it's been a while I didn't visit but nothing change I see, still no neutral ground in this thread .

Why can't we just agree that rather being or not being good enoguh back then he just wasn't the type of player Mourinho wanted as his #10? He HIMSELF said it to the media ( link:: http://weaintgotnohistory.sbnation.com/2013/9/21/4754358/mourinho-oscar-is-my-number-10) this plus the William signing pretty much closed the door to both Mata and de Bruyne. What amaze me is that Mourinho didn't foresee what his own words could do Mata and de Bruyne spirit.

But anyway like I said when I last posted in this thread: If Mourinho made his choice back then, then fair enough; but to blame him/them when it's really Mourinho that sow the seeds is unfair. And if you can read further than that, he actually ( probably unintentionally ) acknowledged his mistake ( selling both of them ) by bringing in a creative player in Fabregas six months later.

As for the " flat track bully " I don't know, I didn't watch many lately and even less city game so I can't say much, but from what I saw combined to the stat ( I know stat doesn't means much outside of their context ) it looks more like a finishing problem with city away than anything. I mean 30 chances created at home for 10 assists is a normal conversation rate but 18 chances created away for 0 assists is definitely abnormal.

Lastly, ( reminder: I didn't watch many games lately ) I don't think de Bruyne would have changed much to the situation Chelsea is right now, don't get me wrong I'm not implying " He is not good enough to make a difference ", my point is that I fell the problem with the team right now is much deeper than just " We need more quality players ". The players are complete lost on the field and the team itself look just... well broken. First, well I really don't think Mourinho was the right coach for the crop of player the team had when he signed but more than that what I want to point is something I often see being laughed at when, I for one, believe is really important: club philosophy.

Club philosophy isn't just something there so you can say " Oh look our team always play nice attacking football " or stuff like that, the real point of a club philosophy is to ease the burden on the players when the club get a new manager, oblivously there will be less of an adaptaiotn needed if you go from a manager that like possession football to another one that like possession football than if you go from possession to defensive minded. This most likely also the reason why when Mourinho leave somewhere there's a lot of work to be done, after all he's just so different than other top managers. Simply said, it's easier to learn something than to forget " that " something

Now going deeper into what I wanted to say: Look at it, before Mourinho spell the players finally started to play some nice attacking football at the end of Benitez interim, then Mourinho came, broke that to rebuild from strach a more defensive minded side, which for the player means" forget everything and restart from the begining " and this time for a type of football that doesn't really suit them ( in my opinion ); And now, two and half a year later, need to forget all this again to rebuild something totally " new ". On a pitch you want the players to be able to play without having to think about what to do next but this process of changing the type of football they need to play just make this harder and harder to acheive, and they learned yesterdya is useless the tomorrow -> They're lost

It's pretty much the same problem ManU has gone through but for another reason... A way too long spell from SAF, his style was so much written deep into them that to change that it require to pretty much recreate the whole team from strach. You can look at Barcelona for the other side of the coin, they do change manager but neither too often nor too late, and they stick to one style of football and the result is there for everyone to see even under a new manager the players are never really lost on the field... That's continuity.

Sorry, that " lastly " ended up being like a novel.... Now, what I written is only my observation and opinion although I fell more like I wasted my time stating only the oblivious things everyone know anyway.and to be honest in the end I still hope I'm totally off the mark and the team manage to rebuild itself way fastes than what I'm expecting.


PS: In no way I'm trying to bash Mourinho or anything else like that in this post, I might not like his style but he doesn't deserve all the crap against him I've read, be it on some forums or in the media; And I also feel sympathy for him, he's like a square in a era of circle... Just different from the others.

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,920]

The elephant in the room is that both he and Silva look like worse players when playing together.....

[kellzfresh 7,229]

The elephant in the room is that both he and Silva look like worse players when playing together.....

I think mancity is better off with only one of them in the middle and Sterling and navas on the wings.

[Fernando 6,484]

Kevin De Bruyne agreed to join Bayern Munich before Manchester City move, says agent

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11679/10128154/kevin-de-bruyne-agreed-to-join-bayern-munich-before-manchester-city-move-says-agent

[Gilvorak 3,734]

Why is he so poor in big/away games?

[Stats 7,059]

What an impact. Comes on and gets a goal and assist within the space of 10 minutes. Only posted this because I fear he has got a bad injury and think it is one that could keep him out for months. Will be a real shame.

[bluesman2610 1,348]

Tough Luck for Kevin.. Hopefully it's not too serious an injury! 

[Special Juan 27,439]

Looked bad, few days left in the window I'm sure they can go and spend 50M if he's out for a while.

[Ledg 640]

By the looks of it he can easily be out for the rest of the season.

Feel sorry for the lad. Great player.

[LDN Blue 7,903]

Looked nasty, hopefully looks worse than it is. Instant impact.

[xPetrCechx 13,563]

Heard that he's our for 6 months...