“He’s already got one hand on the PFA Player of the Year trophy, even though we are only 12 or 13 games in.”

That’s what Jamie Carragher said about Kevin De Bruyne earlier this week and the majority of football fans, you suspect, would concur.

The Manchester City winger has been outstanding during the opening weeks of the Premier League season, scoring three goals and registering six assists.

De Bruyne has been excellent for City from the moment he arrived at the Etihad Stadium in a £55 million deal from Wolfsburg two years ago, but he has taken his game to a whole new level under Pep Guardiola this season.

Stoke City boss Mark Hughes said De Bruyne is “head and shoulders above any player in the Premier League” after the Belgium international demolished his side back in October and you won’t find too many people who’d argue with that right now.

Chelsea fans, meanwhile, are still wondering how their club - and Jose Mourinho, in particular - allowed De Bruyne to leave Stamford Bridge in 2014.

The Belgian barely got a sniff during his brief stint in west London. For one reason or another, Mourinho didn’t fancy him at the time and was happy to offload him to Wolfsburg following a season on loan at Werder Bremen.

The text message Jurgen Klopp sent De Bruyne

Although Mourinho wasn’t impressed with what he’d seen - or heard from the coach’s reports - of De Bruyne in Bremen, Jurgen Klopp thought differently.

The German coach was managing Borussia Dortmund in 2013, when De Bruyne was looking to leave Chelsea on a permanent deal.

And according to German journalist Rafael Honigstein, whose new book ‘Klopp Bring The Noise’ is about to hit the shelves, Klopp sent De Bruyne a text message on the day of his side’s Champions League final against Bayern Munich at Wembley.

What did the message say?

According to Honigstein, per the Liverpool Echo, a deal to bring De Bruyne to Dortmund was all set up and Klopp text the winger expressing his delight at being able to work with him.

However, De Bruyne’s move to Dortmund was vetoed at the last minute by Chelsea and the player ended up joining Wolfsburg instead.

Who knows what might have happened had Klopp got his man. Perhaps he’d still be BVB’s head coach at Signal Iduna Park instead of managing Liverpool.