LB Juan Miranda
On loan from Barcelona, Juan Miranda has played sparingly this season, as he’s behind solid veteran Bastian Oczipka on the depth chart. But Miranda is a talented 19-year-old with huge potential and can already provide quality for this side.
Schalke have to start considering giving Oczipka some rest, as he’s looked wary recently despite continuing to play solid football this season. There isn’t any pressure to rest Oczipka since the club has a couple of more weeks before a tougher part of their schedule pops up, but it’ll be interesting to see if David Wagner decides to give Miranda a chance.
It’d be a good idea to give him some playing time, too, because you never know which young Barcelona star could be offloaded and become a standout in the Bundesliga. I mean, just look at what has happened with Paco Alcacer in Dortmund.
LW Alessandro Schopf
Alessandro Schopf opened the scoring against Arminia Bielefeld in this week’s DFB Pokal game, and he is starting to make some noise again. The former top prospect has been effective recently, even putting in a workhorse of a performance as a defensive winger in the team’s tough 2-0 loss to Hoffenheim a couple of weeks ago.
It looks like Schopf could get another start against Augsburg, and that will be another opportunity for the talented winger to make his mark. If he can grab another goal, then he could be on his way to showing the fans that he is another worthy attacking option who should continue to get minutes this season.