Striker left out for match against Schalke because he missed training‘It is not as if there is that much traffic in Wolfsburg,’ says sporting director

Wolfsburg have confirmed that Nicklas Bendtner was dropped and not injured for the game against Schalke on Sunday. The Denmark international was set to start the game but was late for Friday’s training, leaving the manager Dieter Hecking to drop him from the squad altogether.

“Nicklas was going to play from the beginning but our training session was clearly earlier than he thought,” said Hecking while the sporting director, Klaus Allofs, added: “There are a lot of ways of finding out when training is. And it is not as if there is that much traffic in Wolfsburg.”

Hecking elaborated on the incident on Monday, telling the Danish paper BT: “As a team we have some rules that everyone should keep. When you break those rules you have to take the consequences. But we have spoken to Nicklas and everything is OK again.”

Bendtner, who has scored one goal in 16 Bundesliga appearances since joining from Arsenal last summer, said on Instagram: “Stay strong and look forward. Mistakes can be made, but you got to deal with it and keep progressing.”