Dani Ceballos’s move to Real Madrid has never quite taken off as he would have hoped.
There have been great moments, and times when it looked like he was finally going to establish himself, but every step forward has been accompanied by a step back, further down the line.
A year ago he signed a contract extension to keep him at the club, knowing he was not in the first XI but content to be a second string player.
But this season he has played very little, despite injuries through the whole squad. Marca today point out that only Arda Guler has played fewer minutes in the campaign so far.
The emergence in recent weeks of the Turkish wonderkid as a real option for Carlo Ancelotti means that will only remain the case for a few weeks more. Ceballos is right back where he started, looking more and more frozen out of Ancelotti’s plans.