Leeds United's "special" target scored another spectacular goal thanks to his technical abilities.

Leeds United’s “special” target scored another spectacular goal thanks to his technical abilities.

Leeds United tried to sign Belgian talent Charles De Ketelaere in the summer of 2022, but missed out to AC Milan, now currently on loan at Atalanta.

The Whites’ relegation to the Championship came down to a number of factors, but one of the chief failures was the recruitment spearheaded.

Leeds missed out on Charles De Ketelaere

Andrea Radrizzani spoke to The Athletic in 2022 about Leeds’ failure to sign Charles De Ketelaere from Club Brugge despite a £33.5million agreement between the clubs, as he joined AC Milan instead, saying this:

“He was our icing on the cake, the special player.”

The Belgian starlet has been seen as the next big thing after the Golden Generation of Belgium have failed to produce a triumph in the Euro’s or World Cup, but his first season in Milan failed to live up to the hype.

Plenty of Leeds fans saw his 22/23 haul of zero goals and one assist in 40 appearances and came to the conclusion that he was a bullet dodged, which might have been the case, if he wasn’t still supremely talented and finding his feet after a big move, with so much time on his side.

Since moving on loan across the Serie A to Atalanta, the 22-year-old’s form has exploded in the league with six goals and six assists – as well as a further four goals and one assist in the Italian Cup and Europa League.

The bulk of his league goal contributions have come in 2024, with four goals and two assists in his last four games.

Having scored a brace against Lazio previously, his most recent outing saw him add to his tally in outstanding circumstances against Djed Spence’s Genoa, with the ex-Leeds loanee watching from the bench:

Reminiscent of Pipiss Cisse at Stamford Bridge, the quality of De Ketelaere’s goalscoring makes for envious viewing knowing that we spent so much of our effort in that 2022 summer window trying to sign him – a player with the quality in the final third that we were sorely lacking when we were on the way to relegation.