Schalke 04: David Wagner must turn desperation into change

Schalke 04 can’t figure anything out, and David Wagner’s clock has to be ticking to take this desperation and turn it into palpable change.

Schalke 04 continue to struggle to find answers. David Wagner highlighted the lack of fans as problematic to the atmosphere at the stadium, but even before that happened, the club was still plummeting out of the top four.

More and more, fans are losing faith in David Wagner and his repeated mistakes and tactical blunders. It isn’t helped by his complete refusal to start Ahmed Kutucu, our best goal-scoring threat when goal scoring is the biggest threat to our existence.

But against Augsburg, Wagner started throwing the kitchen sink onto the to pitch. Ahmed Kutucu was the first sub, followed by Levent Mercan and Nassim Boujellab, and not once did we even get the hint of Guido Burgstaller.

David Wagner can turn Schalke desperation into change

Maybe it’s too little too late. Maybe Wagner is at the point where he feels like it can’t get any worse than it already is. Honestly, it should have reached that point long ago.

Schalke is in a state of pure, unadulterated desperation. They are, by many standards, screwed. And by that same standard, David Wagner may be too. I get hesitant writing about him in the present tense because I worry that by time any given article goes live, he’ll be fired.

But as long as he is in charge, he has the opportunity to change things, and while desperation is not a firm foundation to build substantial change on, he does have that whole “it can’t get worse” backing to make wholesale changes on the pitch.

What’s keeping Daniel Caligiuri on the pitch instead of, say, Boujellab? Why leave Levent Mercan on the bench when he carries one of the best resumes from Knappenschmiede? And for the love of all that is blue and white, why isn’t Ahmed Kutucu given a chance to do more than the nothing that his teammates are doing?

Wagner can make the changes that he’s needed to make for months. It’s not too late. He can take this desperation and turn it into the future of the club. That’s what Kutucu, Boujellab, Mercan, and more youngsters are, right? They have more value than the likes of Caligiuri and Burgstaller.

It’s time to pull the plug on the present and start the future ahead of schedule. It may be ugly, but hey, isn’t it already?