Over the past few days comments from Schalke general manager Christian Heidel have made their way over to the English media.
Heidel had originally been speaking to Suddeutsche Zeitung and on the subject of signing Nabil Bentaleb, initially on loan, he explained: “There have been countless offers for him, and it came to tens of millions – in English pounds. Our luck was that Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy was afraid to sell him in England.”
Those comments fit perfectly in with a report from Kicker in their August 25th magazine. Kicker had said West Brom made a €22m offer for the Algerian midfielder, but Tottenham were set against selling him to a Premier League rival.
Kicker ended that piece of their article by saying ‘Good luck for Schalke’, just like Heidel himself.
It would therefore all fit in that Bentaleb was one of the several midfielders who Tony Pulis and West Brom made an effort for as the transfer window was closing.
The €22m is presumably a conversion from £20m, at the poor exchange rate at the time, but it wasn’t enough to convince Levy to allow a Premier League move, even to West Brom, who are hardly a rival of Spurs at the moment.
