Schalke concede last minute equaliser

Goretzka misses out

There was no place in the Schalke squad for Leon Goretzka. The Germany international missed out due to a muscle strain. There were two changes to the starting XI. Daniel Caligiuri and Amine Harit returned to the starting XI after missing out in the DFB-Pokal win in place of Coke and Yevhan Konoplyanka.

Bentaleb scores from the spot

As has taken place in most games featuring the Royal Blues of late, Schalke dominated possession and didn’t let Wolfsburg out of their own half. The first big chance fell to Franco di Santo who headed an effort with pace towards the top corner but Koen Casteels pulled off a wonder save to tip the ball over the crossbar. Casteels was called into action once again as Amine Harit’s shot was tipped onto the post.

Schalke kept Wolfsburg away from their own goal and pushed for an opener. It finally came in the shape of a penalty. After consultation with the video referee, the referee decided that Thilo Kehrer was fouled in the penalty area following a Bastian Oczipka penalty. Nabil Bentaleb took the resulting spot-kick and converted it shortly before half-time.

Unfortunate equaliser in added time

It was almost déjà-vu in the second half as, after consulting the video referee, the referee decided that Naldo had fouled Yannick Gerhardt in the same penalty area as before. However, there was one key difference. Unlike Nabil Bentaleb, Mario Gomez was unable to covert his spot kick which flew over the bar.

A few moments later, Bastian Oczipka almost doubled Schalke’s lead. His free-kick left the Wolfsburg goalkeeper, Koen Casteels, rooted to the spot but the strike whistled wide of the post. The visitors came into the game more and more. Maximilian Arnold forced a solid save from Ralf Fährmann and the last 15 minutes of the game were both end-to-end and tense in equal measure. The recently substituted Fabian Reese and Yevhen Konoplyanka both squandered opportunities to put the game tro bed for Schalke and the Royal Blues paid the price. Deep into additional time, VfL Wolfsburg got an equaliser. Divock Origi got a toe on Mario Gomez’s flick on after a long ball forwards and steered the ball past Ralf Fährmann who was powerless to stopping the ball from trickling over the line.

Next fixture against Freiburg

You could almost touch the three points before they were snatched away from them. Whether the draw was fair enough is debatable but regardless the points will be shared. It’s the sixth consecutive draw for Wolfsburg under Martin Schmidt.

After two games at the Veltins Arena, Schalke now head on their travels to Freiburg where they will take on SC Freiburg at 15:30 CET on Saturday 4th November.