When Schalke signed Nabil Bentaleb on loan from Tottenham, and Benjamin Stambouli on a permanent deal from PSG, the hype was a little too much.
German newspaper Bild declared the player a warrior before he’d played a game for the club, and Schalke general manager Christian Heidel said “Nabil Bentaleb fits perfectly. He can’t bear it when the opponent has the ball.”
That was followed with more claims from Bild that Bentaleb and Stambouli were warriors, and could end Schalke’s curse against Bayern Munich.
Of course that didn’t happen, and Schalke are currently without any points from their first three Bundesliga matches. Given that two of those matches were against Hertha Berlin and Eintracht Frankfurt, it’s not great.
Bild call it a ‘mentality misery’ for Bentaleb and Stambouli and say the pair made ‘hair-raising’ ball losses in the last match.
They go on to quote Heidel as saying that perhaps there’s a touch of arrogance “Since both were recently highly praised.”
By you Heidel, by you.
