Blues legend Frank Lampard defends Mourinho's decision to sell Kevin De Bruyne

London, Oct 1: Chelsea legend Frank Lampard has backed his former manager Jose Mourinho's decision to sell former Chelsea Academy Youngster Kevin De Bruyne back in 2014 after the Belgian scored the winner for Manchester City against his old club yesterday.

Kevin De Bruyne has been performing superbly since leaving Chelsea and for the last two seasons has established himself as one of the top attacking playmakers of Europe.

In his earlier career, the Belgian failed to find his place in the Blues XI and he was shipped to Werder Bremen on Loan. However, after returning from the loan he found himself behind the pecking order with the likes of Willian, Oscar. To have a better playing time, De Bruyne then left Chelsea in 2014 and joined Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga before returning to the Premier League with City for a club record £55million deal a year later.

Long regarded as an exciting young talent, De Bruyne's talent was always visible and after yesterday's heroic performance, many Blues supporters have been criticising the Chelsea board and their former manager Mourinho for their decision to sell him.

However, their club legend, Lampard has now come out of the support of his former manager and claimed that at that moment the 26-year-old was not such world class and he left the club because he was impatient with the limited chance he was getting.

'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.

'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.’

De Bruyne has already registered four goals and four assists in nine appearances this season as the Blue half of Manchester currently claiming the top spot in the league for consecutive three weeks.