Over the past few days we’ve covered reports from German newspaper Bild which put the blame for Schalke’s woes firmly on the shoulders of the club’s players.
Schalke haven’t won a game so far this season in the Bundesliga, indeed they’ve lost all five of them, and Bild appear to be being encouraged, or doing it off their back, to make sure as much blame as possible is deflected from manager Markus Weinzierl and others in charge at the club.
Tottenham player Nabil Bentaleb is one of several players, who are mainly very young, who are repeatedly being accused of letting Schalke down. The Spurs loan footballer has been labelled arrogant, a ‘Schalke Slacker’, and Bild said yesterday that he’s one of a few who are using the club as a springboard to better things.
Given Bild have had a new angle every day, it’s no surprise to see an article on Wednesday. The German newspaper say that on Tuesday, Schalke’s general manager (which would likely be termed sport director here) Christian Heidel held a meeting with the club’s players to try and improve their character.
On Tuesday morning Heidel is said to have held a 30 minute PowerPoint presentation which explained to the club’s ‘slackers’ what the values of Schalke are.
Heidel only joined Schalke in the summer, as did Weinzierl, maybe the pair should have gone through a few PowerPoint presentations for themselves, and been better prepared.
Surely something has to improve, but if it does not then Tottenham may want to consider exploring the possibility of snatching Bentaleb back in January. Otherwise the constant over the top criticism and pressure, and the club’s crisis seeing a transparent blame game, may see his value drop and, more worryingly, harm his own outlook.
