Caleb Okoli arrived at newly promoted Leicester City during the last summer window. He’d moved from Atalanta on a permanent deal, having had loan spells at SPAL, Cremonese and Frosinone.
Signing a five year contract with the Foxes, the aim was for the 23-year-old defender to develop further in the Premier League.
He’s played 22 matches, but some of those were only very brief substitute appearances and his involvement dropped since the arrival of Ruud van Nistelrooy as manager.
Okoli’s agent Alessandro Barison has been speaking to TMW, and he explained: “With Cooper he always played. Van Nistelrooy changed the team a bit and in the second half of the season he played less than we expected. Then unfortunately the results that the club expected were not achieved.”
Despite not starting him regularly, Barison says the Dutch manager blocked an exit in the January window after other clubs had shown serious interest: “Several clubs were after Caleb in the winter market, but Van Nistelrooy himself and the club let me know that they absolutely did not want him to leave.”
Being an agent, Barison went to quite some effort to talk up interest in his client: “Both from Italy and England. In Italy it’s three to four teams, in England two.
“We will obviously have to understand what is the best project for Caleb’s growth. As you well know, he has had some requests from Serie A in recent days. They are looking at him.”
When asked specifically if it’s true AC Milan and Bologna are keen, the agent said: “We say: when the bells ring, it means the church is close. If these rumours are going around, it means there is some truth to them. I don’t know in what form.”
Despite all of that, Barison insisted a Leicester City exit in’t nailed on and it will all depend on what happens in the coming weeks: “We will meet with the club soon to talk about this too. It doesn’t mean that staying where he is can’t be good, but we need to evaluate everything, from the championship to the project for the future. Playing in the Championship is not like playing in the Premier League. He has a market, both in English and Italian football. And we also need to think about the fact that he is aiming for the national team and doesn’t want to lose it.
“We need to sit down and talk about it. The club made an investment in him, then in January the coach wanted to give a firm no to his departure. I thought he would play even more, but he still did well.”
Reading between the lines, especially with the comments related to the Italy national team, should clubs like AC Milan and Bologna come forward then Okoli will likely be tempted to leave Leicester City.
