Some choices in life take their time to prove fruitful, but when they finally do, that feeling of knowing you made the right one is one of the best there is.
This is what M’Baye Niang is feeling right now, having moved to Torino and teamed up once again with Sinisa Mihajlovic, his former AC Milan manager.
For this to make sense, we’ll take you back to January 2016, when Leicester City were interested in signing the France U21 international.
At the time, Claudio Ranieri might not have known it, but the Foxes were well on their way to lifting a Premier League trophy, relying on the likes of Jamie Vardy, Danny Drinkwater and solid backbone of Robert Huth and Wes Morgan to achieve their unlikely feat.
However, the Italian still wasn’t fully happy with his attack, and a £12m bid for the AC Milan forward was made.
Niang would earn a lot more money, but his relationship with Mihajlovic was such that he decided to stay, and the Serie A club ultimately rejected Leicester’s advances.
And this, this is the decision he’s delighted with.
He told Gazzetta dello Sport on Monday: “My agent called me. He said ‘Leicester have made an offer to Milan’, but I wasn’t going to move because of Mihajlovic, who told me ‘Stay here, and score in the derby’. I remained, and I never regretted it”.
Later, the Serbian manager would be sacked to be replaced by Vincenzo Montella, and Niang’s time at AC Milan would become an unhappy one.
A loan to Watford followed, and Leicester were able to see what they had missed out on, which wasn’t a lot.
Now on loan at Torino, who have the right to buy him for €20m, the 22-year-old is happy, grateful he rejected the Foxes.
They’re probably glad he rejected them too, to be fair.
