Lampard and De Bruyne were at this weekend’s opponents, Chelsea, together for a spell before KDB’s exit which eventually led him to City and a trophy-laden career in sky blue.
Lampard recognised De Bruyne’s quality in training sessions at Cobham and respected his decision to leave as the Belgian looked to fast-track his career.
The success of KDB since is of no surprise to Lampard.
De Bruyne has won 14 major honours with City and, this season, since returning from a five-month injury lay-off, he has already contributed to nine goals in just eight appearances across all competitions.
He scored one and assisted the other two in Tuesday’s 3-1 Champions League Round of 16 first leg win over FC Copenhagen.
“Kevin was clearly a quality player when he came to Chelsea as a young lad. It was obvious his levels in training,” said Lampard.
“But at the time, we had a lot of players in the area of the pitch that Kevin played. He found it hard to get into the team.
“Then you could sense Kevin’s frustration at that point. And I got it because I was a similar player – hungry and ambitious so I always had that if I wasn’t playing, it was written all over my face. It was written over Kevin’s face.
“He obviously left Chelsea probably because he was keen to get playing. And I respected that.
“Kevin was on a different pathway and wanted to get there quickly.
“From then to see his development into the player he is now has been very, very special. He’s so unique in terms of hitting his top levels so regularly.
“His understanding of the game, the goals he scores, his work ethic for the team, those have developed since I played with him obviously and we have all seen him become one of the greatest midfield players in the Premier League era, for sure.
“I’m really pleased for him because I really liked him as a lad and I understood his frustrations at Chelsea and he’s obviously put in a lot of work, the hard yards to get to where he’s got to but then his talent is immense as well.”
Check out our special interview with Frank Lampard on mancity.com and our official app later this afternoon as he talks in-depth about his time at Manchester City as well as assessing the current holders of the ‘Big Five’.
