Sead Kolasinac rejoins Schalke from Arsenal
Sead Kolasinac has sealed a return to Schalke on loan from Arsenal for the remainder of the season.
The 27-year-old left-sided defender will provide some much-needed steel and experience as new head coach Christian Gross tries to guide the Royal Blues off the bottom of the table.
The Bosnia-Herzegovina international knows exactly what awaits him in Gelsenkirchen, having played 94 Bundesliga matches for Schalke between 2012 and 2017.
"I'm happy and proud to be wearing the royal blue of Schalke 04 once again," Kolasincac said after the move was finalised on New Year's Eve.
"The club is currently in a difficult situation. Over the coming weeks and months I want to do my part in order to help us pick up as many points as possible. We will manage to stay up together - I’m 100 per cent convinced of it."
Schalke visit Hertha Berlin on Saturday, but their new No. 20 will not be eligible to make his first appearance since returning until next week's game against Hoffenheim - with whom he spent a year as a teenager.
The Royal Blues could certainly do with the help, since they currently have just four points from 13 games this season and are on a 29-match winless run in the Bundesliga.
The club said they had been working hard for a while to bring back "true Schalker" Kolasinac.
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"Sead's character and strong will exemplify the values that Schalke 04 stands for and are exactly what's needed in the fight to stay up," Jochen Schneider, Schalke's head of sport and communication, said on Thursday.
In his first spell with the club, Kolasanic recovered from a cruciate ligament injury to help his team reach the 2015/16 UEFA Europa League quarter-finals.
The hard-running player was then voted on to the official Bundesliga Team of the Season in his final year at Schalke after getting three goals and five assists from left-back.
Following his move to English side Arsenal in the summer of 2017, Kolasinac started at wing-back in the 2018/19 Europa League final defeat to Chelsea and was named in UEFA’s official squad of the season for that tournament.
He then made 27 appearances for the Gunners in the 2019/20 campaign, coming off the bench as they got the better of Chelsea in the FA Cup final.
In total, Kolasinac served up five goals and 15 assists in 113 games in all competitions during his three-and-a-half-year stint in London.
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