Kevin de Bruyne has suggested he wasn’t given the chance to prove himself at Chelsea under former manager Jose Mourinho.

The Belgian, who has established himself as one of the Premier League’s best players this season at Manchester City, made just three league appearances during his two-year spell at Chelsea.

After spending one season on loan at Werder Bremen, De Bruyne signed for VfL Wolfsburg before returning to England as a Manchester City player for the 2015/16 season.

On the back of a series of world-class performances the 26-year-old is already being tipped to land this season’s Player of the Year award.

Chelsea will be ruing the decision to let De Bruyne leave, though the forward insists Mourinho’s refusal to look beyond his statistics hindered his development at the Bridge.

“I just said I can play,” he told The Times. “I have no statistics — two games, what do you want me to do? I had a feeling I wasn’t even going to play.

“Even if he said you’re going to play more games, from two games I was maybe going to go to five. It was, for me, a good decision to leave [for Wolfsburg].”