FC Schalke: Thank you, Benito Raman, may we have another?

FC Schalke lost ground in the Bundesliga following the Dusseldorf draw, but Benito Rama is a sparkling sign moving forward. More, please?

FC Schalke are not known for scoring a lot of goals and running the show offensively. Call it the byproduct of having two strikers who have yet to score a Bundesliga goal this season (one goes back to last January…). But seeing Benito Raman run the show offensively against Fortuna Dussedorf gives hope that maybe we saw a glimpse of the very near future in the thrilling 3-3 draw.

Overall, FC Schalke dropped in the table. They had three separate leads and the one-man undoing, Rouwen Hennings, saw to it that none of those leads were kept. But I don’t want to talk about that. I want to talk about how effective the Schalke attack was, and why it was Benito Raman we have to thank for it.

Let’s check out the numbers first. Raman notched an assist and was cruelly denied another when Amine Harit rocketed the crossbar. Raman tied for the team lead with two chances created and was second on the team with two dribbles completed as well. He tied for the team lead in both shots and shots on target.

Most importantly, my favorite stat of all, he took zero poor touches. To put that in context, only Oscar Mascarell and Alexander Nubel can say the same. Alessandro Schopf had four, as did Daniel Caligiuri and even Ozan Kabak.

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Amine Harit even took one.

Similarly, Benito Raman was only dispossessed a single time. Anytime you have a dribbling, speed-based forward who is only losing possession a single time in 70 minutes, you have something special, and that is what we saw from Benito Raman against his former club.

Stepping away form the numbers, let’s talk tactics. Benito Raman opens up a whole new angle for Die Knappen to attack from. When you think about Guido Burgstaller and Mark Uth, aside from not being able to score, they also don’t boast a lot of speed or footwork.

That’s Raman’s bread and butter. His ability to exploit space with quick touches is second only to Harit. But the one thing Raman has that is second to none is, you guessed it, that speed. When you have a forward that can run like him, it gives you the option to just loft balls over the top and let them chase it.

That’s something we’ve not had with Burgstaller or Uth. But with Raman, it added a new dimension to an often frustrated Schalke attack, and it is something we will come to rely on moving forward for all the reasons we saw against Dusseldorf.

Raman is going to score goals for us, and he is going to score a lot. Now it’s just a matter of getting him started.