Everyone who’s approached by a big Premier League club is going to go running and skipping into their open arms, right? That’s the usual narrative come transfer season, with England’s rich TV deal allowing clubs to spend richly on fees and wages, and it helped drive Manchester City’s pursuit of Wolfsburg star Kevin De Bruyne.
Kevin De Bruyne says he’s not ditching Wolfsburg for Premier League
Despite speculation assuming he’d head to the richer pastures of Manchester City, Kevin De Bruyne is staying put in the Bundesliga.
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Not so fast, though: the Belgian international just declared that he’s staying at Wolfsburg this season:
Kevin de Bruyne sagt auf der Bühne beim @SPORTBILD Award: "Ich bleibe diese Saison beim @VfL_Wolfsburg" pic.twitter.com/iMEDXs3LkO
— Marcel Friederich (@M_Friederich) August 17, 2015 For those who don't speak German, that's De Bruyne on stage at a German sports awards event declaring that he will stay this season at Wolfsburg. When pressed to repeat what he said to verify it, he did, and said he'd be playing in Wolfsburg's huge German Cup match against Bayern Munich in October.
So much for the rich contract offered by Manchester City to come to England (and the title race) being a stone-cold lock to pry De Bruyne away from the successes he's had at Wolfsburg. After years of loans and struggles while with Chelsea, De Bruyne has blossomed in a big way since joining Wolfsburg a year and a half ago, finally looking like he's realizing the vast potential that made Chelsea snap him up from Genk in Belgium as a teenager.
It makes a certain sense that De Bruyne would rather stay in a place that’s allowing him to succeed rather than move to a team where he’d face uncertain playing time in a country where he hasn’t found much success. Still, the declaration is being met with the usual “what do you mean a star player doesn’t want to play for a big English club?” shock that such announcements often draw out. It doesn’t really seem like that big a surprise, but hey, football is about passion and emotion, and those don’t always play well with logic.
