AC Milan’s former sporting director Igli Tare has explained that an injury most likely kept Niclas Füllkrug from taking off at AC Milan, scoring just one goal. 

It was at the start of January of this year that Milan decided to bring in Füllkrug to bolster the No.9 position for the second half of the season. While the start was encouraging on the pitch, with the winner against Lecce on January 18, he never really took off.

Actually, if you knew what was going on behind the scenes, the start wasn’t even that encouraging. Just over a week or so after joining, he broke his toe and it ended up having a huge effect on the entire loan spell.

Injections just to play

Speaking to Sky Sport last night, Milan’s former sporting director Tare was asked about the signing of Füllkrug. This season, the German has scored 12 goals in 11 games for Werder Bremen and the director believes he could have had those numbers for the Rossoneri without the injury.

Füllkrug performed poorly in Milan, but in the Bundesliga he’s scoring a lot and is the top scorer. How do you explain that?

“It’s simple. He came to us after a tough time in England, with a lot of scepticism. And then, right away, he broke his toe. No one ever said he’d been having injections on the bone for two months just to train, let alone to play.

“I knew he was a centre forward that the team was missing; given his characteristics and his interpretation of the game, his qualities were unquestionable. Just two years before coming to Milan, he’d played in the Champions League final, playing a key role in a competition with Borussia Dortmund,” he stated.