Arrigo Sacchi has credited Gian Piero Gasperini with his role in Charles De Ketelaere’s resurgence, but believes AC Milan made a mistake letting him go.
After signing for over €30m from Club Brugge in the 2022 summer window, De Ketelaere was offloaded a year later following a disappointing first campaign in which he failed to score even a single goal.
The ‘solution’ turned out to be a move to rivals Atalanta. La Dea swooped, sensing that there was a player in there ready to take flight again, and they secured a €3m loan plus a €22m option to buy and €4m in bonuses.
They were able to defer the payment and will now recover the expense with interest, because he is worth over €40m as per reports circulating. A year on from that operation Milan were rushing to get done, there may be a sense of regret.
Sacchi gave an interview to La Gazzetta dello Sport ahead of Atalanta’s trip to face Lazio tomorrow night and he comments on De Ketelaere, who has exploded again this season.
“He was clearly not a Mr. Nobody as those at Milan thought when they sold him, and in his growth I see Gasperini’s hand,” he said (via MilanNews).
“He was able to revive a player who has notable qualities, he stimulated him and, when he understood that it was the right time, he placed him at the centre of the project. Gasp believes in playing well, above all else, it is his strength.”
Menagement : “let’s pretend that loftus is better at AM than CDK”
Poli preferred a loanee than full Milan player..
No love given to CDK
The fact they gave up on a young talent only after one season when the clown Pioli hardly even gave chances to CDK, shows you how clueless this how management was.
Milan problem have been mediocre Coaches.
Give Gasperini this Milan squad and see wonders.
Pioli cost Milan many important development players.
While Fonseca is doing is best to cost Milan their super stars /experience players Leoa. THEO, RLC, Calabria etc
Gasperini is a mediocre coach..
He’s doing a great job with atalanta but he’s 66 years old and only won his first trophy last season.
Not exactly a world beater, a? And he’s been a manager in serie A since 07. Before that serie b and c
The perfect coach if Milan wants to build with lots of young players: Gasperini
Not pioli or clownseca
CDK had plenty of opportunity to show his quality at Milan and he simply didn’t. How many more games could the team give him? 40 appearances and 0 goals. Perhaps the mistake was not making the loan a dry loan, but I don’t buy the argument the club gave up on him prematurely.
How many games he was in 1st 11.
Most of it was substitution
Poli didn’t trust him. Poli only loved a loanee
Considering you’re quite detailed in mentioning the appearance, you should also probably take note that most of it are 10-15mins cameo. Not to mention that he is played out of position by Pioli.
Of course, CDK himself is partly to blame for unable to hit the ground running, sometimes looked like deer in headlights in majority of the games. However, most foreigners, especially youngsters needed to acclimatize, what he needed at the time was trust, patience and guidance; which he evidently bountifully received at Atalanta.
Had he stayed with us, I still doubt that he would exploded the way he did this season. What was regretful is that we were too keen to offload him, and giving Atalanta discount in the process too. I don’t know what was the management thinking? They were literally SO patient with Theo, Tonali, Leao and to certain extent even to Chuk and Musah (which is good).
One thing is the pressure that got to him and maybe he’s just not a big team player.
But the hipocrisy where Chuk got another season to prove himself but CDK got called a flop after just one…
Saki je otkrio toplu vodu kad konstatira da je Milan pogriješio s de Katelate
Indeed. What a total waste for let him go