Kevin De Bruyne never got much of a look-in at Chelsea (Picture: Getty)

Chelsea legend Frank Lampard has explained why Jose Mourinho sold Kevin De Bruyne back in 2014 after the Belgian scored the winner for Manchester City against his old club tonight.

The 26-year-old has grown to become one of the finest attacking midfielders in Europe despite failing to see much playing time in a spell with the Blues earlier in his career.

Long regarded as an exciting young talent, De Bruyne was shipped out on loan before returning to the Chelsea first-team under Mourinho in the 2013/14 season.

However, he didn’t last long as the Portuguese sold him to Wolfsburg that January, though Lampard believes he was justified in doing so.

Frank Lampard believes De Bruyne was too impatient (Picture: Getty)

The former England midfielder believes Chelsea had too many other options at that time and that De Bruyne was not patient enough to wait for his chance.

‘It was a difficult time for the club, you had (Eden) Hazard, Oscar, and Willian had just signed. He wasn’t as good as he is now,’ Lampard told BT Sport.

‘Of course it’s easy to look and say “why did you let him go?”, but he’s gone away and made himself a world class player.

De Bruyne is now one of the best players in the Premier League (Picture: Getty)

‘You always wonder about development. He had good pace, good passing, good dribbling, but at that point he couldn’t get into our team.

‘One thing he had was ambition, he wanted to go away and prove he was a player.’

Chelsea 2017/18 Fixtures

Newcastle (A) - Sun May 13

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