Charles De Ketelaere has not set the world alight since his arrival from Club Brugge in the summer window and Stefano Pioli now faces the task of getting him into form.
La Gazzetta dello Sport write how Pioli has made it clear that at Milan they wait for players who have obvious talent, just as they did with Theo Hernandez, Rafael Leao, Sandro Tonali, Pierre Kalulu and Alexis Saelemaekers.
Read SempreMilan ad-free and get access to exclusive news. Click here for a free trial!
Milan failed to score against relegation battlers Cremonese on Tuesday night and De Ketelaere appeared shy off the bench. The ideas there and you can see it, but at the same time you also notice the difficulty the Belgian is having putting it into practice.
The 21-year-old dazzled for the first time in Milan’s 2-0 win over Bologna on 27 September but since then there has almost been a gradual regression, something that is demonstrated by the fact he has started five games in a row on the bench.
Against Monza he came on and missed an easy chance to get his first goal because he snatched at it, while the other matches he failed to make an impact. It is more than a problem of form, because it now seems to be a mental block too.
Paolo Maldini has always preached calm, the club believes in CDK and are doing everything to protect him, but another dilemma is his role. Last year at Brugge he almost always played as a false nine, ending the season with 18 goals and 10 assists in 43 games.
On a handful of occasions he also played on the wing, but he started around thirty games up front. There it was the team that played around him, while at Milan he has been up front only in the last 20 minutes against Dinamo.
This, perhaps, could be the key to understanding his difficulties, beyond adapting to a new type of football. With 18 games and just an assist to show, which came a month and a half ago, more must come from De Ketelaere in 2023.
