Milik to Napoli
08/02/2016
It was already in the making for a while, but now it is final: Milik left to Napoli for 32 million.
In the two years Milik played at Ajax, he was never sure of his place. The first season Milik was on loan from Bayern Leverkusen and it was not until almost the end of the season before the option to transfer him permanently was exercised. At that time the season was already over for Milik, because of an injury, but with 23 goals in 34 official matches he had very good stats. In the first season Milik was competing with Sigthorsson for the position of first striker, and in the second season, when Sigthorsson had left, Milik was often the first choice for the striker position. Not always though, he started amongst others the matches Ajax - PSV, Feyenoord - Ajax (2 times) and Ajax - Feyenoord on the bench. Characteristic of the lack of confidence of coach Frank de Boer in Arek Milik came during the last official match for the both of them for Ajax. Despite the fact that Ajax had to score to win the domestic championship De Boer substituted Milik in the 66th minute and prefered to let Mike van der Hoorn fill in the position of central striker instead.
On the list of most efficient goalscorers Milik stands between recent top strikers like Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Luis Suarez. Yet even the biggest Milik supporter would agree Milik has not yet shown the quality that Klaas-Jan and Luis had when they left Ajax, they had retained this high goal average over a longer period.
The past also indicates that making goals at Ajax does not guarantee a successful career at a top European club. If we disregard the 6 goals scored during one Dutch cup match against amateurs Milik roughly had the same scoring average as Mido and Danny Hoesen.
It is now up to Milik to show during the coming years whether he should be mentioned together with Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Luis Suarez, or together with Mido and Danny Hoesen.
Filed under: Arek Milik
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