"I am going to fly over to London to find a proper solution with Chelsea."

"Should Kevin be granted a transfer, I will be immediately on the phone to Michael Reschke (Leverkusen's general manager). We have a great relationship with him."

"Clubs like Borussia Dortmund, Schalke and Wolfsburg have also enquired."

"Kevin will decide which club offers the best future for him on a sporting level."

"Another loan wouldn't be good for the player or the club."

"The player and his family would like to secure a permanent solution because he has been out on loan already twice."

"It's a World Cup year and for this reason he needs to play."

"Now in the next few hours or days, we will see if somebody finds an agreement with Chelsea. If there is an agreement I will speak with the player about what we will do."

"His preference is to go back to the Bundesliga. There have been discussions with Wolfsburg and other clubs."

"It's not that we can confirm the deal just yet, but we are no longer so far apart with Chelsea that we can't bridge the differences."

"I still don’t know why I lost my place after the game against Manchester United. I’ve also never asked Mourinho. He has never told me: ‘Kevin, you don’t train well.’"

"So it’s a pity he told it in a press conference that I wasn’t doing well on the training pitch. That’s not me. I’m always a player who gives the full 100 per cent in training. Those remarks created a wrong image."

"I wouldn’t mind if all the training session at Cobham took place in public - I have nothing to hide."

"Yes, if a player hears he won’t play, he’s unhappy, but I never showed my disappointment to the training pitch."

"At the end of December I had a chat with Mourinho. He told me things about competition, about training hard, and that there’s always a chance that you will play. And he also told me he wasn’t keen to let me go, even on loan — but what could I do more?"

"After his press conference in Bucharest I even started training harder, even on my days off. I lost three kilos and two percentage of fat — although we could get everything at the club: coke, chocolate. That’s why I asked him in a friendly way ‘please let me go.’"