FC Schalke 04 dominated Borussia Monchengladbach in the first game of the Rückrunde, and it wasn’t easy to narrow it down to five top performers from Matchday 18.
Although FC Schalke 04 still sit outside the top four Champions League places in the Bundesliga, their 2-0 win over Borussia Monchengladbach showed that the Royal Blues are still legitimate title contenders. They owned Gladbach on both ends of the pitch, making the previous league leaders look completely out of sorts.
And they did so without Amine Harit, who has been one of the Bundesliga’s top five players this season. New loan signing Michael Gregoritsch more than stepped up in Harit’s absence, with Alessandro Schopf also putting in hard work on the opposite flank of veteran Daniel Caligiuri.
Here were the top five performances from Schalke’s 2-0 win over Gladbach on Matchday 18.
FW Michael Gregoritsch
Playing as a “halb neun” next to Benito Raman, Michael Gregoritsch looked like one of the best attacking players in the league in his first game with the Royal Blues. This sounds like a hot take after only one game, but Gregoritsch looks infinitely more comfortable with Schalke than he has in the past one-and-a-half seasons with FC Augsburg.
Gregoritsch bagged a goal and an assist in his debut, drawing out defenders to the left flank before finding Suat Serdar for the first goal. His second was a clean finish after Raman set him up wonderfully on the counterattack.
The 25-year-old Austrian led the team, per WhoScored.com, with four key passes, as he constantly caused Gladbach’s defense problems. Gregoritsch did everything he could to set up his teammates on Matchday 18. Typifying the nature of his all-action display, Gregoritsch even had a goal-line clearance.