Sven Botman was one of the new players to arrive at Newcastle United in the last window and the Tyneside club overcame competition from AC Milan to secure his services.
The Magpies paid €40m to Lille for the 22-year-old. After completing a move to St James’ Park, the centre-back admitted the Serie A winners made efforts for him.
However, the dream to play in the Premier League and Newcastle’s project gave Eddie Howe’s side the edge over the Italian champions.
The Rossoneri’s failure in signing the Netherlands U21 international allowed them to invest a large part of the fee on Charles De Ketelaere. They had to overcome competition from Leeds United to take the Belgian to the San Siro from Club Brugge.
“First of all, the market is dynamic. We tried to take Botman before Charles, who would have exhausted what was our budget and we would have turned to other players for that role there. Our ideas in May compared to what happened in the end, there is hardly a common thread,” MIlanNews.it quoted Maldini as saying.
“At this point of our journey we must not take medium-sized players, but players of great prospect: Charles is one of them. We need time, I know that the fans and the newspapers are not waiting, but we have to wait.
“I give the example of Platini who did not do well at Juventus for the first six months, then went back to winning everything. A 2001 [born player] is not ready to take on so many responsibilities in a club like Milan, we must give this balance.
“We know what the ways are to bring young people to grow. Bets are made on young players, not all are won but we have very few doubts about him.”
