Benito Raman has a place
Benito Raman came into this game knowing he’d need to impress after an anonymous display last week against Augsburg in spite of his team’s three goals. The Belgian forward was the lone striker for Schalke against his former team, and he definitely made Fortuna Dusseldorf miss him.
Although it was puzzling to see Raman exit the game in the second half for Rabbi Matondo when the team still needed him, this was likely more of a case of David Wagner wanting to see what the talented Matondo, who was the best attacker in the Revierderby, could give. (That said, he probably should have subbed him in for Alessandro Schopf instead of bringing in Mark Uth, as Uth missed a glorious chance to win the game.)
Back to Raman. He had an assist for Daniel Caligiuri’s brilliant opener and nearly added another assist for Amine Harit, who hit the post. Raman had a hard-working performance and popped up in so many dangerous areas in the penalty box, testing Zack Steffen a handful of times.
This was Raman’s best Bundesliga performance in a Blue shirt, and it was a continuation of his strong form against Arminia Bielefeld, in which his brace lifted the Royal Blues to a DFB Pokal match victory.
As of right now, Raman has a spot in the starting lineup. If it weren’t for Dusseldorf’s hat trick hero, he would have been regarded as the best player on the pitch.