A report has highlighted some concerns about Charles De Ketelaere’s role at AC Milan and whether he is in fact the right attacking midfielder for Stefano Pioli’s system.
Calciomercato.com recall how Milan have invested a lot in De Ketelaere and not just the €35m transfer fee either, because his arrival represented not just a large part of the summer budget gone but also he was meant to be the fix to the problem that emerged last season regarding the No.10 role.
However, the report states that it is becoming ‘increasingly evident’ that De Ketelaere is ‘not the ideal attacking midfielder as Pioli’s game is set up today’. Pioli wants his No.10 to support the striker in proximity and also with the right runs, to press from the front line and also to assist the midfield in the defensive phase.
Analysing the heat maps of the Belgian and in particular the game against Dinamo Zagreb, in which the team won 4-0 but the 21-year-old was only on the field for 52 minutes, coming off at 1-0 after getting a yellow card and the game was unlocked with three goals after that.
The former Club Brugge man is showing a tendency this season to move from the centre of the field – i.e. away from the traffic – and more towards the left and right flanks that the wingers occupy.
De Ketelaere is essentially playing as more of a second striker than a playmaker and ‘not as a dynamic attacking midfielder as requested by Pioli’. Width comes from wingers and the overlapping full-backs, so having an attacking midfielder who goes out wide overcrowds the spaces and creates one behind the striker that a midfielder – typically Tonali – must move forward to occupy, jeopardising the balance of the team.
