Former Netherlands legend Ronald de Boer has called the criticism PSV Eindhoven received for not selling Cody Gakpo last summer 'funny' given his recent World Cup heroics.
The Dutch forward, who Leeds United were heavily interested in, has been one of the stars of the tournament so far, bagging three goals in three games for the Netherlands.
With Gakpo leading the charge, Louis van Gaal's side have qualified as the winners of group A.
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Having starting the season in rampant form, which has carried over to the World Cup, speculation around his future is increasing.
Leeds tried to sign the Dutchman in the summer but director of football Victor Orta was unable to strike a deal with PSV, who opted to keep the 23-year-old.
The Dutch side had decided to keep him, with the aim of increasing their club coffers with Champions League football.
However, after missing out on the group stages of Europe's elite competition, and choosing not to sell Gakpo, PSV received plenty of criticism due to the money they had lost as a result.
But those critics all seem to have vanished now given the payday the club will receive for Gakpo when they do choose to sell him, something which De Boer believes is "funny."
"It's funny, before the season, they could have already sold Gakpo to an English club, Leeds United, for a lot of money," De Boer told Sky Sports.
"But PSV said ‘no, we’ll wait, we’re going to play Champions League’ and then they got kicked out by Rangers.
"And they thought ‘oh, there goes the money’, it was bad management basically they said because now they lose a lot of money. They kicked out the technical director [John de Jong] because of that, not totally. Now he must be sitting on his couch thinking ‘Gakpo is worth £80m, probably, so why am I sitting at home?’
"Talking about Gakpo himself and his quality, he’s a great youngster. He has speed which is important and dribbling but most importantly has a great shot, he’s directly to the goal and he finds the net quite easy. What’s less important is that he’s a great person, you can see on the camera, really down to earth and I love him as a football player and as a person."
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