When Chelsea sold Nathan Ake to AFC Bournemouth for £20m in 2019, the club’s transfer department would likely have been patting each other on the back and offering reciprocated congratulations for a job well done, but fast forward several years and the dynamic Dutch defender is a regular option for Manchester City.
Indeed, after forging 121 appearances for the Cherries, the 27-year-old penned a £41m deal with the Cityzens in 2020 and has since made 63 appearances, scoring six goals.
This might seem like a relatively meagre amount of fixtures over two-and-a-half seasons, but Ake is starting to blossom into his own and emerge as a key component of Pep Guardiola’s system.
This season, Ake has played his most prominent role, having played 23 times across all competitions and having started the past seven league contests in succession.
He has been one of the Sky Blues’ most surprising stars this season, with Sofascore recording his average rating at a solid 6.95 in the Premier League this term, where he has completed 92% of his passes, completed 67% of his dribbles and won 69% of his ground duels; robust and reliable.
And with FBref ranking him among the top 1% of centre-backs in Europe for both attempted passes and progressive passes, the top 9% for progressive carries and the top 5% for shot-creating actions, he is evidently one of the most ball-comfortable and offensive-minded of his position across the entirety of the game.
His late blossom to prominence is partly a factor in why Chelsea sold him in the first place, with the £20m that Bournemouth offered rightfully considered an excellent deal for the north London club.
But with Chelsea having spent more than £550m on new arrivals since Todd Boehly assumed ownership of the outfit last year, the “fantastic” City defender – as hailed by international team-mate Virgil van Dijk – is another example of how Chelsea might have saved millions had they entrusted the trajectory of his development in the long run.
And with CIES Football Observatory rating his market value at £45m at present, the Blues hold the knowledge of selling their starlet for less than half of the sum, with that perhaps an indication a blunder was made in the transfer market.
While the Blues are now jam-packed with defensive options after Boehly’s lucrative spending spree, observing Ake’s recent purple patch for one of the game’s most distinguished and devastating outfits is a reminder that Cobham youth ranks offer an abundance of budding talent just waiting to be channelled.
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