Schalke 04: Give me Ahmed Kutucu or give me death

Schalke 04 has to give Ahmed Kutuc a start or they are going to be fully vindicated masochists who just want everyone to suffer with them.

Schalke 04 has a serious problem, in case you didn’t notice. And it is 100% David Wagner’s problem to solve, not to mention a problem that is in his realm to solve. As long as there are still possibilities out there, there will still be opportunities to improve, and there is no greater opportunity than Ahmed Kutucu.

The guy has played only 349 Bundesliga minutes and not started a single match. Yet, despite all this, he has three goals and an assist to average a goal contribution every 87.25 minutes. Which, if you’re into stats, is better than every single person in the Bundesliga excluding Bayern, Dortmund, and Timo Werner.

Yet he hasn’t started a single match.

Schalke needs solutions, and it must be Ahmed Kutucu

Now, the way I’ve justified this is David Wagner weeding out what isn’t working while saving Ahmed Kutucu for when he has weeded out his bad eggs. I don’t know what further proof he needs that Guido Burgstaller is a bad egg and that Michael Gregoritsch isn’t far away.

Benito Raman has definitely had his struggles, but his uses are clear and obvious and just need to be harnessed properly. AKA, not as a sole striker, because that’s madness.

Kutucu is Die Knappen’s best striker by a long shot, and that’s without having started a single match yet. So as we approach this final stretch of the season, with nothing much else going for this attack, David Wagner has to, he absolutely has to, start Ahmed Kutucu. I have vehemently defended Wagner throughout the doubts and I hope to continue to feel completely confident in his vision for the club.

But if he doesn’t start Kutucu against FC Augsburg, I will begin to feel the creeping doubts of a man not cut out for the job. There can’t have been many excuses leading up to this point and there are even less with each day. But as Sunday morning rolls around, there are literally no excuses. You cannot tell me that Wagner believes in Raman or Burgstaller more than he does Kutucu.

And, well, if he does, then like I said, down with Wagner. Because I can’t imagine a vision for this club that gives more priority to Guido Burgstaller than to Ahmed Kutucu. Now we just have to wait and see what happens.