Schalke 04: Ahmed Kutucu not the only one who needs to be freed

Just about all season long, Schalke 04 fans have been clamoring for more Ahmed Kutuc, but he’s just one of many now that the club continues to fail.

At this point, everyone is familiar with the #FreeKutucu movement, coined by our pals over at the SchalkeMerica podcast. It’s a plea for David Wagner to finally give the young Ahmed Kutucu his first at the top of the Schalke 04 formation because why the hell hasn’t he started a match yet?

Against Augsburg, he again didn’t start, though he was our first substitution, forced by the injury to Suat Serdar. Even then, he was apparently given the directive to drop back into a No. 10 position, rather than swapping with Michael Gregoritsch up top.

Embarrassingly, Schalke was slaughtered yet again despite controlling more possession. Individual mistakes ruined the day and Wagner was left tossing subs on the pitch, knowing that nothing was going to change the pitfall.

Schalke need to free more than Ahmed Kutucu

While Kutucu might have been the first “Free” movement, he is now just one of many. With so little creative ability or goal threat coming out of this team, you have to start including Levent Mercan and Nassim Boujellab.

It really has come down to a “you can’t do any worse” argument. And sadly, it’s true—Schalke can’t do any worse than they are currently doing, so why keep sending the same guys out there? Why not throw in some young guys who may have some kind of inspiration, which is just as rare as goals these days.?

Boujellab and Mercan are both attack-minded midfielders who bring significant goal threat from their youth performances at Schalke, and while Mercan was guilty of the poor touch that surrendered the third goal to Augsburg, a lot of the rust undoubtedly comes from not playing, and from being surrounded by uninspired attacking players who are just going through the motions.

Amazingly, we’re still clamoring for the #FreeKutucu moment, but it’s time to start up the #FreeBoujellab and #FreeMercan movements too. Maybe it won’t amount to anything, but it sure as hell beats seeing the same old Royal Blues doing the same old things. Youth has a way of breathing life into a situation and if Wagner wants to keep his job much longer, life needs to come from somewhere.

Dusseldorf is right around the corner, and we should see at least two of these guys in the starting XI. No excuses.