De Bruyne could be the special one who got away

Four summers ago, Manchester City pushed hard for Eden Hazard, spending months pursuing the Lille midfielder before pulling out because of the escalating costs of the deal.

Chelsea had no such concerns, readily paying £32 million (S$69.4 million) for the player, then 21, who has since repaid his employers many times over by helping to deliver trophies at home and in Europe, not to mention last season’s Footballer of the Year award.

But Hazard was not the only 21-year-old Belgian to pitch up at Stamford Bridge in the summer of 2012.

Kevin De Bruyne, six months after agreeing a £7 million transfer from Genk, also arrived in west London in the weeks following Chelsea’s Champions League triumph. But while Hazard set a trajectory for the stratosphere, the flame-haired De Bruyne was unable to replicate the progress of his international team-mate before falling foul of Jose Mourinho and leaving within six months of the manager’s arrival.

Yet with De Bruyne now securing a return to the Premier League with City in a £55 million transfer from Wolfsburg, the wheel has turned full circle. While they abandoned Hazard because of the costs, City have instead pressed their foot firmly on the pedal to land De Bruyne, smashing their own transfer record in the process, and there will be a delicious irony for the club if he can become the player that he has always been predicted to become.

“Everyone knew that De Bruyne was a great talent,” claimed Hans Vanhaezebrouck, De Bruyne’s coach at Genk. “But he is a more complete player than Hazard.

“He has a better understanding of the game. He can play on the left or right, wide or inside. He can dribble, play the ball inside or shoot from distance. He can even play left, right or in the hole or as a second midfielder alongside a holding player.”

Vanhaezebrouck was speaking in 2013, when De Bruyne and Mourinho were proving as compatible as fire and ice.

After playing for an hour as a centre-forward in the 0-0 draw against Manchester United at Old Trafford, a week after starting against Hull City, De Bruyne was dropped by Mourinho, who was subsequently unimpressed by De Bruyne’s reaction. “He told me it was not in his personality to be competing for a position in the team,” Mourinho said last month. “He needed a team where he knows he can play every game. He needs to know that he is important.”

Mourinho has since insisted that he did not want De Bruyne to leave — Chelsea sold him to Wolfsburg for £18 million in January 2014 — but many close observers of the Chelsea manager believe that the player’s fate was sealed by his reaction to being dropped. Mourinho tests the mentality and desire of his young players with displays of ruthlessness — dropping them or substituting them after an apparently impressive contribution — and those who take their medicine often thrive.

For De Bruyne, and his former Chelsea team-mate, Romelu Lukaku, they simply failed to pass the Mourinho test. Few players have proved Mourinho wrong after being discarded by the Special One, but De Bruyne has as good a chance as any of his former players to embarrass the Chelsea manager.

His performances for Belgium at the World Cup finals last year, when Marc Wilmots guided the team to the quarter-finals, highlighted De Bruyne’s accelerating development. The progress in Brazil continued apace at Wolfsburg last season, with De Bruyne almost single-handedly carrying the club to second in the Bundesliga and Champions League qualification, with 16 goals and 28 assists in all competitions.

It is his goalscoring and creating qualities that have caught the attention of City, who have trailed the player since last autumn, largely on the recommendation of club captain and Belgium international Vincent Kompany. The 24-year-old possesses similar qualities to Steven Gerrard, with his best position in an advanced role behind the forwards or out right.

At City, he may have to defer to the likes of Yaya Touré and David Silva initially, but time is on his side to become the fulcrum of the team for a decade. “I can play in five different positions and I think that’s an advantage,” said De Bruyne. “But my main contribution is attacking and the further back I play, the less I can help out with my job: To provide assists and score.”

The Hazard story was a lesson learnt and, this time, City have paid the asking price. Now, it is up to De Bruyne to justify it and prove that he really is the player that can haunt Mourinho. THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

Mark Ogden is The Daily Telegraph’s northern football correspondent