Boateng: I never came to blows with Howedes, but we could not stand each other

Former Schalke midfielder Kevin-Prince Boateng has taken aim at former team-mate Benedikt Howedes and admitted he could not stand the defender right from the moment he walked through the door at the Bundesliga side.

Boateng joined Schalke from AC Milan in August 2013, but eventually left the club in December 2015 when his contract was terminated after spending six months on the sidelines due to an internal suspension over his poor attitude.

He re-joined Milan in January and has few good memories of his time with Howedes as Schalke.

“I never came to blows with Howedes. That never happened,” Boateng told Sport Bild. “That just goes to show how much nonsense people wrote about me.

“But it is true that we could not stand each other right from the beginning.

“We always gave our all on the pitch, though. We both wanted success. Plus Howedes was the first to send me a message when I got suspended at Schalke.”

Boateng worked with Roberto Di Matteo at Schalke for an eight-month period and he feels the former Chelsea manager’s time at the club was one big failure.

“I had only heard good things about Di Matteo when he was appointed. I called [Didier] Drogba, who knew him from his time at Chelsea, and he was also positive. I thought he would be a good coach,” he added.

“But things went entirely different. I did not really have a problem with him, but the team only really bought into him and his ideas for a week or so. It was all over from there on.

“His methods did not fit the team. We had a young team that was hungry to learn, but he did not have the right ingredients to feed that hunger. He simply was not tough enough.”