I read last week that Milan management and CDK representatives will meet to discuss the player's future. Don't know if he's salvageable psychologically but his body language tells me he has completely lost confidence and does only the simplest and safest things because he's afraid to make mistakes. Yesterday on one of his first touches he was pushed off the ball and gifted Spezia a dangerous chance on goal. After that he disappeared while when Adli entered he tried to make shit happen with dribbling and well executed passes. If you want to be a champion you can not be shy, you have to make yourself available to receive passes and be aggressive. CDK has not shown these traits, perhaps he wasn't challenged enough at Bruges and it was easier for him but Serie A is too tough for him. I'm not sure of this but it seems every times he enters the pitch we either lose a lead or get scored on, he tries an initial press but then soon gives up and rarely provides defensive assistance. I feel sorry for him because I'm sure he's very disappointed in his Milan experience but we really can't afford him on the pitch so a parting of the ways might be beneficial to both sides. I've rarely seen a new player struggle as much as him and I'm not sure how much he'll improve in the future: I've seen nothing to suggest that he ever will. And it doesn't matter which position he plays, yesterday he was mostly on the right and nothing changed. I don't know what the meetings will be about but probably his desire whether to continue with us or not but I would personally shop him around to limit our losses. Nobody is perfect but MM really screwed up here, so my question is: should he stay or should he be given another chance?
Where did you read that? You’re absolutely correct that CDK lost his first ball, but the fact that you specifically remember that and want to criticize it is weird. We lost the game 2-0. The problems at Milan are much bigger than him.
CDK has been the victim of something akin to high-school bully journalism and analysis. No one will tell you he’s been a success, infact many blame him solely for our lack of progression as a team due to his pricetag. But the kind of pyschoanalysis and criticism he’s received has crossed the line many times. I can’t count how many Milan-focused journos have called him a “loser” and a “scared kid”. What the fuck is that? To know why Italy has a problem with aging and renewal, look now further than its football. Old men without foresight control everything and won’t relent. Thats why we can’t build a stadium. Young players are crucified when they don’t immediately fulfill the dreams of old men who want the riches ala-Berlusconi to return. No one has the patience to plant fruit and allow it the time and environment to flower and blossom, we want to just transplant the finished projects even when we can’t afford it. Everything thats happened to CDK has been a microcosm of this. In the beginning he had a spark but after a few bad results and he hadn’t shown to be the next Kaka (a ridiculous comparison every young playmaker gets at Milan) people started to turn on him. A 21 year old who came grom the Belgian league wasn’t immediately a contributor to our already broken team:
“sell him!”
“loser”
“look at his face (?)”
“fuck that guy!”
Here’s the problem. We’re not going to get rich any time soon, so whether you like it or not we HAVE to support young players as they go through these growing pains. We don’t have a choice. 32 M in 2023 gets you a promise, not a ready made champion. Teams like Madrid understand this when they pay 40 and 50 Million for 16 year olds from Brazil. But then they protect those players, they give them time to grow. He’re in Milan we have 50 year old men calling our players “losers”. How do you think that effects the players pysche? All the pressure on CDK to justify his pricetag is going to see him leaving and realizing his potential elsewhere exactly like Paqueta. And we’ll be worse off for it, financially and on the pitch.
Also, these rose colored glasses people see Adli through has to stop. When he plays a bad game you’re going to do the same thing to him you’ve done to other young players in this team. Lets be objective, the guy throws the ball away. He’s trying- he’s seeing movement in front of him and trying to create. Its good to have a player who passes the ball forward and we desperately need that, but Adli is allergic to keeping posession it seems. He tries every pass. The riskiest pass he just goes for it. And because we’re so anemic for guys to do that we go, “thats what has been missing!” when in reality if we watched him play week in and week out that would get old FAST. He needs an extend run in the team without pressure. Adli has the potential to be something akin to Luis Alberto at Lazio, an assist master. But we haven’t really seen him do that yet, so the superlatives need to be put on hold. Lets acknowledge him in missing passes, but applaud him for trying them at the same time.