A player Derby County missed out on when Gary Rowett was manager in 2017 has just become a European champion.
Derby County are currently basking in the glory of their promotion back to the Championship while Paul Warne is ironing out plans to keep the Rams afloat next season.
The Rams require significant improvements to their squad following the departures of six first-team players, including Golden Glove Award winner Joe Wildsmith.
Unlike last season where Warne wasn’t able to spend, owner David Clowes will arm the 51-year-old with the funds to bolster his squad as he eyes up some talent in the market.
Learning from their mistakes of the past where they splashed the cash, namely paying £10 million for Krystian Bielik, Warne will be scouring for bargains.
Derby have become accustomed to acquiring gems in recent years, but they’ve also missed out on their fair share, with one former Everton star slipping from their grasp.
Derby County nearly signed Ademola Lookman on loan from Everton
In the summer transfer window in 2017, Derby attempted to capture talented forward Ademola Lookman on a season-long loan from Everton.
Lookman was aged just 19 at the time and restricted to first-team opportunities on Merseyside, making just eight appearances for the club, only three of those in the starting XI following his £7.5 million switch from Charlton Athletic in January 2017.
Derby’s manager at the time Gary Rowett has since revealed how they thought they’d landed the Nigerian on loan only to miss out just hours before the window closed.
Speaking in 2018, as per the Derby Telegraph, Rowett said: “I spoke to the player and we’d agreed everything with Everton.
“The only reason I mention Lookman is because it has been well-documented. I think Sam (Everton manager Sam Allardyce) has said that their preference was for the player to come to ourselves, but the preference of the agent and the player was to go to Red Bull, which you can understand because it is obviously a very good club in the top four of the Bundesliga.
“The transfer window in Germany closed at 6pm our time and at about 7pm we were lead to believe it (Lookman’s move to RB Leipzig) hadn’t gone through in time and so there was still an opportunity but we then heard at about 7.30pm that wasn’t to be.”
RB Leipzig ended up signing Lookman on loan in January 2018 before acquiring the talented forward on a permanent deal from Goodison for £22.5 million a year later.
Ademola Lookman scores hat-trick in Europa League final
Since the Rams agonisingly missed out on Lookman, the “unbelievable” 26-year-old endured spells at Premier League sides Fulham and Leicester City before Serie A side Atalanta snapped him up in August 2022.
The fleet-footed forward always felt like a player waiting to explode into life, doing so at Atalanta having registered 30 goals and 16 assists in 76 appearances.
Lookman’s nine goals in Serie A last term helped secure his side a Champions League place, but even more impressive, the former Everton man has just scored a hat-trick in the Europa League final to beat Bayer Leverkusen, ending their 51-match unbeaten run under Xabi Alonso.
From nearly signing for Derby in 2017 to firing Atalanta to their first trophy in 117 years, it’s been a whirlwind six years for the talented attacker with the Rams left to wonder what could have been.
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