A mature Kova would be Serie A's best midfielder. He is perfect for it.
Really upset we couldn't get him.
With the exception of the old guard, Yung Kova was easily my favorite r̶a̶p̶p̶e̶r̶ player during our banter years but he wasn't mature then and IMO still hasn't matured.
There is a total of approx.
3,420 possible league minutes per season. Since leaving Inter, Kovacic has played just 5,450 total league minutes of a possible 13,700 minutes over 4 seasons. That's an average of just
1,360 league minutes per season in the past 4 years. In fact, the last time he even played over 2,500 minutes i.e. 3 quarters of a season, it was here at Inter in 2014/15, literally 5 years ago.
I don't think that's enough game time to develop to ones full potential. Especially in that crucial foundation age and in a role as cerebral as Kovacic's.
Of course hindsight is always 20/20. We were never going to win shit in the banter era anyway. Our club was in a complete mess, restricted financially and wasting what little money we had on mediocre players like Medel and Kondogbia. I blame the management for not having the foresight to better manage our rebuilding phase and instead going for the quick fix every year, and imploding as a result. Even if he wasn't "ready", Kovacic should've developed here. He should've been trusted as a key foundation stone of our rebuilding phase but instead we sold him off looking for another (failed) shortcut back to the top.
Ironically, it's actually Brozovic who very loosely "succeeded" to fulfill this destiny to some extent

Like Kovacic, Brozovic was bought for cheap during the banter years as a young player with potential. Despite his enormous ups and downs, with some luck, he managed to develop into a very good midfielder and emerge from the banter era a truly important player in our top 4 and CL squad. It wasn't pretty, but we/he made it happen. This is what I wanted for Kovacic - grow through the dark years and come out the fire as a developed key player.
Regardless though, Kovacic sitting on the bench for literally
60% of the season, for
four consecutive seasons has severely stunted his development. I think this is plain to see when you watch him play. He looks every bit as naive as he was when he was a 20 year old at Inter. It's sad, and yea, we made mistakes but it is what it is. I don't think he's worth bringing back and I think the idea of Chelsea buying him out for €50m is laughable.