Kevin De Bruyne has confessed that he knew his time at Chelsea was over after he was asked to play in a Carabao Cup tie against Swindon Town.
De Bruyne joined Chelsea in 2012 but was infamously sold by Jose Mourinho two years later after failing to make any real impact at Stamford Bridge, but the Belgian had the last laugh after he quickly blossomed into one of the world's best playmakers.
He was sold to Wolfsburg for £18m in 2014, De Bruyne confessed that he was actually eyeing a move to Borussia Dortmund.
"Chelsea really wanted to keep me and give me a chance, but I really wanted to go to Dortmund," he told Play Sports' MIDMID podcast. "I had a good feeling about that and I always try to make decisions based on feelings.
"Eventually, I did play for Chelsea, but only in the cup at Swindon. That was really dramatic. I hadn't played for a month and then you have to play against a League Two side. At that point, it was done.
"I never went to Jose Mourinho. I trained hard, I showed enough, but it's a myth in football that if you train well, you get chances. That's just not true. I let it hang for a while because I didn't see a chance to play anymore, but then I learned to behave differently sometimes, and that you can get out of such a situation. At the time, I didn't see that. I just wanted to leave."
Despite his rocky relationship with Mourinho, De Bruyne insisted that he has nothing against the boss.
"I don't hate Mourinho," he stressed. "I'm not a little kid. Things just didn't click at that time."
In total, De Bruyne managed just nine appearances for Chelsea, all of which came in the first half of the 2013/14 campaign, after which he was sold to Wolfsburg and given the platform he was always looking for.
In his first full season in Germany, De Bruyne racked up ten goals and 21 assists, and that form saw Manchester City come in with a whopping £55m to bring him back to the Premier League.
Source : 90min