Bild: Nabil Bentaleb passes Schalke medical, season-long loan to be announced tomorrow

Yesterday, we noted that Tottenham Hotspur and Bundesliga club Schalke 04 were close to an agreement that would send want-away midfielder Nabil Bentaleb to Germany on a season long loan with an option to buy. Now, a German newspaper has reported that the deal is done.

Bild is reporting that Bentaleb has passed his medical, and that the clubs should be announcing the deal “tomorrow.”

Perfekt: Die Ausleihe von Nabil Bentaleb (21) von Tottenham Hotspur! Der algerische Nationalspieler kommt für eine Saison. Die Schalker haben nach BILD-Infomationen die Kaufoption, die bei etwa 19 Mio Euro liegt.

Bentaleb hat bereits den Medizincheck absolviert, morgen wird sein Wechsel offiziell verkündet.

If you don’t speak German, this snippet also says that the option to buy is apparently for €19m Euros, or £16.1m. Which is a fantastic price... but also a little weird. Recall that Spurs reportedly rejected a Schalke bid of £10m to purchase Bentaleb outright, so the idea that they’d consider paying over £6m more than that to basically rent him for a year seems strange. We also don’t know what the terms of the loan are and whether Bentaleb would meet those terms next season in order to trigger the purchase clause... or even if it’s mandatory.

But on the other hand, Bild seems to be implying that the information regarding the fee is coming from Schalke, so what do I know?

There’s a lot of smoke coming from Germany about this move, and if today’s any indication, we’ll get a tweet from @spursofficial confirming the loan 20 minutes after I post this article. But at minimum, this is the clearest indication yet that Bentaleb will be playing his football away from White Hart Lane this coming season.