Former Chelsea defender Nathan Ake has admitted brutal Jose Mourinho left him mentally “broken” after dropping him into the reserves without a single training session.
Ake was at Stamford Bridge for five years but was limited to just seven matches before attempting to rescue his career by moving to AFC Bournemouth for £20million in 2017.
He recently explained to the Telegraph how he quickly his Chelsea career went from an all-time high to an all-time low in the space of a few months.
The season after Benitez left I thought, ‘this is going to be my season. Then Jose 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.
The Dutch centre-back arrived at Chelsea as a 16-year-old in 2011 and broke into the first team under Rafael Benitez in the 2012-13 season, but made just one appearance in Mourinho’s first campaign in charge.
Ake has been a regular starter for the Cherries under Eddie Howe and, now 24, is considered by many as one of the most underrated central defenders the Premier League has to offer.
