“The feeling was always” – Kevin De Bruyne reveals two clubs that battled Manchester City for his transfer in 2015 | OneFootball

Kevin De Bruyne has revealed the two clubs that battled Manchester City for his signature back in 2015, but admitted that his feeling was always on the Etihad Stadium.

The Belgian international has been one of the most transformative signings in the history of Manchester City, and is often at the centre of debates among supporters as to whether he is the finest player to ever play for the club.

Signing for the Etihad project in the summer of 2015, Manchester City invested a reported club-record fee of around £55 million in a player who was infamously excluded and rejected by Chelsea earlier in his career before making the switch out to German football.

Subsequently, upon returning to the English game, some had reservations over Manchester City’s investment and whether De Bruyne was the player that deserved such a significant investment. But since then, the story could not have been more perfect.

Now speaking exclusively to Manchester City’s official club podcast, De Bruyne has admitted that as a result of media conversation at the time, he felt under pressure to perform upon making the move to the Etihad Stadium in the summer of 2015.

“I felt a little bit more pressure. Not really because I was afraid but because of the little outside pressure that was coming, but I felt also that when people were talking from the outside, press or whoever, they didn’t really watch me or what I did at Wolfsburg,” De Bruyne said.

“Let’s be honest, people in England don’t really watch the Bundesliga. And I grew a lot in a year and a half and I know it’s quick, but I also trusted myself to do well and then my first season was really good for me and it just grew on from there. Now we’re here.”

Continuing on the subject of his move to Manchester City, De Bruyne also revealed that his signature was at the centre of a three-club battle, but that conversations with Etihad sporting director Txiki Begiristain ultimately made the difference.

“It was a long process in the summer because there were three teams involved with Bayern Munich and PSG. And for me, the feeling was always City,” the Belgium international captain explained.

“They pushed the most, they were the best feeling for me and with Txiki (Begiristain) handling the way that he did gave me more security. The other ones was more business, it felt more personal when I spoke to Txiki and when he explained to me the project.”

De Bruyne went on to explain, “I felt with the guys coming in that we were like, I don’t know, the second wave after the takeover. We had the first wave with Yaya (Toure), Vinny (Kompany), Kun (Sergio Aguero), all these guys who did it.

“And we were like the maybe the beginning of the changing of these guys and I felt really good about it that I would be able to do that, and it just grew from there.”

Kevin De Bruyne has returned to a fantastic level of form at the start of the brand new season, and recovered beyond expectation from surgery on a hamstring injury at the start of the last campaign which ruled him out for six months.

De Bruyne previously admitted that in order for him to truly assess his physical recovery from the operation, he would need a succession of game time without problem last campaign and a successful European Championships.

Having now achieved both of those checks, the belief is that Kevin De Bruyne will continue to be at the centre of Pep Guardiola’s tactical plans this season, and Manchester City themselves may now be more confident in opening contractual discussions with the player very soon.