AC Milan president Paolo Scaroni has admitted that Charles De Ketelaere has so far not met expectations but preached the importance of having patient.
De Ketelaere was Milan’s big signing of the summer window after the 11-year wait for a Scudetto was ended, arriving from Club Brugge for a figure of over €30m, but his time at the club has not exactly gone to plan so far.
He has no goals to his name after scoring 18 times last season, and he has just one assist which came against Bologna at the beginning of the season. In fact, his last goal was on 1 April 2022 when he scored a tap-in for Club Brugge against Beerschot on the penultimate day of the season.
Speaking on the microphones of Radio Anch’io Sport, Scaroni was asked about the first season at the club for the Belgian, with his comments relayed by our colleagues at SempreMilan.it.
“Did he meet expectations? Maybe not, but we are capable of waiting. We have already experienced it in the past with Sandro Tonali, he didn’t do very well at the beginning while today he is one of the team’s strengths,” he said.
On the stadium: “The theme of the stadium is so hackneyed, on social networks they call me Paolo Stadioni, this to make people understand how many words I’ve said about the stadium.
“San Siro renovation hypotheses become impossible because two teams are playing there. The number of matches makes it impossible to do any heavy lifting. We are looking around to find solutions, we are working on it.”
On the Juventus case: “It is a pity that sporting justice cannot express itself quickly, but if these are the rules we must accept them.”
On the model of English football being unattainable: “No, I don’t like being pessimistic. We have a long way to go, but with this year’s sporting results, Serie A will acquire new spectators all over the world and therefore also new revenues.”
Stop comparing CDK with Tonali. There are no comparisons there.
In his 1st season at Milan Tonali was very good defensively but was poor offensively, especially with his passing. His passing is still bad. He still passes the ball 20 meters behind his wide open teammate or wayward pass out of bounds.
CDK has been awful in every aspect of the game.
The only comparison of a bad transfer like CDK was Caldara’s. But at least Caldara had an excuse because he suffered a serious injury
Tonali has all the grit needed, something we as fans knew that he’d make it one way or another. He even lowered his salary to make his transfer permanent. Not a technical aspect, but that kind of mentality worth beyond any technical tallents.
While CdK, well, he might be one of the softest kids in this modern era of football I’ve ever witnessed.