Fifty days have passed since Gonçalo Ramos last celebrated a Serie A goal at San Siro. His only league strike for Milan came against Venezia on 28 August, in the second round of the season, and as the Rossoneri prepare for matchday seven on 18 October, the Portuguese forward is still waiting to add another.
It is not a question of Ramos having lost his touch altogether. Away from domestic football, he has continued to score with regularity: three goals in three Nations League starts for Portugal, followed by the goal that completed Milan’s 4-0 victory in their first Europa League away match. The issue for Ruben Amorim is to bring that same decisiveness back into the league campaign, where Milan need their centre-forward to turn promising work into points.
Ramos has been willing to serve the side beyond the penalty area. He has pressed, dropped into attacking midfield spaces and linked play with those around him, but the numbers underline why Milan are waiting for more. Across six Serie A appearances, he has registered six shots on target and an expected-goals figure of 1.99. More tellingly, he has had only 28 touches inside the opposition box.
For a striker of his standing, that is a modest presence in the decisive areas. Milan spent €73.1 million on Ramos during the summer, the highest transfer fee in the club’s history, with goals at the centre of the investment. Amorim personally identified him to Gerry Cardinale as the forward he wanted to lead the new attack: a player able to combine with team-mates in possession while also occupying the box with authority.
A familiar scorer looking for his Milan rhythm
Ramos arrives with a record that suggests a long drought is unusual. He scored 45 goals in 131 appearances for Paris Saint-Germain, many of them made from the bench, and 41 in 106 games for Benfica. Throughout his career, he has generally avoided going more than three matches without finding the net. At Milan, despite receiving more minutes than he often did previously, that sequence has already stretched further.
Amorim has not altered his view of the player. The coach has seen enough in Ramos’s international displays to believe the missing element is not quality but translation: the same forward can contribute to construction, move intelligently between defenders and finish in different ways when chances arrive. Milan’s hope is that those qualities will soon come together in Serie A rather than appearing only in Europe and with Portugal.
Talk of a possible January striker does not change Ramos’s position as the clear first choice. If Francesco Camarda does not establish himself over the coming weeks as a reliable alternative, Cardinale may assess the market for another number nine capable of easing the burden on the starter. For now, however, Milan’s immediate task is simpler. Ramos remains the man chosen to carry the line, and after seven weeks of league football, he needs the goals that give a striker his natural rhythm again.
