Schalke chief Jochen Schneider is hoping that Newcastle United will activate a €10m purchase option in Nabil Bentaleb’s deal at the club.
The Algerian midfielder has been on loan with Newcastle since the January transfer window when Steve Bruce brought him back to England in an attempt to bolster his midfield.
His time in the North East has been relatively successful, with him featuring regularly and making 11 Premier League appearances thus far and three in the Magpies FA Cup run as well.
Indeed, all indications are that Newcastle like the midfielder given they agreed to extend his initial loan deal, which had expired after the Coronavirus lockdown.
However, it is unclear whether they will turn his loan deal into a permanent one at this moment in time.
BILD cover the situation today and say that Schalke are hoping they will, as they are eyeing up the money from the deal to improve their own squad this summer.
The newspaper explains that the Bundesliga side are looking ‘nervously’ to St James Park to discover what their plans are for the midfielder.
Schneider ‘hopes’ that after an extended ‘reflection period’ the Magpies will elect to activate the €10m clause they agreed in his initial loan deal.
That would give Schalke an extra €15m to spend this summer, as it would also take Bentaleb’s €5m salary off the books as well.
So far there has been no contact between the two club, though, and Bruce has publicly admitted that he doesn’t think deals for any loan players will be sorted any time soon.
That, according to BILD, could be the club looking to ‘push the Bentaleb price’ down and potentially get themselves a better deal than the one they’ve already agreed.
