Former Chelsea player Nathan Aké has spoken out about his disappointing time at Stamford Bridge after claiming that José Mourinho left him "broken."
The 24-year-old defender spent five years at the Blues, but he was restricted to only seven appearances while he was at the club.
Aké made six of his appearances in the 2012-13 campaign and seemed to have a promising future at the club.
After Mourinho replaced interim boss Rafa Benítez in 2013, he made only one more senior appearance for the club before he was sold to Bournemouth for £20m in 2017.
Aké has now revealed how it mentally affected him when the Special One halted his progress in becoming a first-team regular.
"I went to the first team at Chelsea and played under Rafa Benítez and I always thought, 'why is everyone saying setbacks are coming because everything is going up, up, up?'" he told the Daily Telegraph.
"The season after Benítez left I thought, 'this is going to be my season.'
"Then José Mourinho came and, without training, I got dropped into the second team.
"That was one of the toughest things for me, mentally. I was quite broken.
"Everything was going great, I played a few games, I was young player of the year and then I was in the reserves again."
Mourinho has been out of management since Manchester United sacked him in December, following a disappointing start to the season.
Last month, the 56-year-old Portuguese manager had been linked with a sensational return to Inter Milan.
Meanwhile, former Real Madrid president Ramón Calderón recently suggested that the ex-Chelsea and United boss would be the next manager for Los Blancos.
"I have the feeling, and something else, that next season Mourinho will sit on the bench of Real Madrid," he said on Twitter.
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