The players to look out for in the Bundesliga this season

The Bundesliga is basking in the recent publicity its receiving and this weekend marks its return. A quick look at some players who may be about to have a big year.

Roman Neustädter

It was last summer when the Ukranian born defensive midfielder joined the Gelsenkirchen based side on a free transfer from Gladbach. Neustäder as well as Marco Reus had helped Gladbach reach the champions league qualifiers and represented something of a coup for Schalke to get him on a free transfer. From then the midfielder went from strength to strength, impressing at the emirates as the Germans triumphed in a surprise over Arsenal. He formed a good partnership in the double pivot Schalke operated defensively to protect their back four. At 190cm he represents an imposing physical presence but can also cover ground with surprising athleticism, impressing with his intercepting and tackling abilities. Schalke struggled for form in parts of the season and clinched the fourth champions league spot right at the death, one positive however was the performances of Neudstädter and this was rewarded when he was called up to Low’s German side gaining himself two caps for the national team. Schalke have strengthened well over the summer and Neustädter will again have a big season as his side look to get closer to the top of the Bundesliga, build on last year’s Champions League run and for him personally add to his collection of caps.

Neustädter’s defensive duties as Schalke win at Arsenal.

Max Kruse

In 2011/2012 season Borussia Monchengladbach conceded just 24 goals and finished 4^th, one goal less than eventual winners Dortmund. Just as well because they only managed to score 49. One year later however and that figure had dropped even lower to only 45 goals scored and 49 conceded. This season the focus for Gladbach has to be tightening up the defence and adding more goals. The man tasked with adding more goals is 25 year old Max Kruse. Signed from Freiburg for only € 2.5 million, he is an absolute bargain.  A newly capped German international that has 1 international goal from his 2 appearances, coming when he netted against the United States,  Kruse can play on the right, left, in the hole behind the striker and ultimately up front. His return of 8 Bundesliga goals and 5 assists helped take Freiburg to a Europa League spot and his new employers will be hoping he can have a similar impact.

Heung-Min Son

2012-13 was a great year for Leverkusen as they came within point of Champions League runners up Dortmund in the race for second. However rivals all around them have strengthened whereas Leverkusen look to have weakened. Last season’s star performer Daniel  Carvajal has returned back to Real Madrid and the sensational Andre Schurrle has moved on to pastures new in the English Premiership. Leverkusen sold the German for €20million and spent €10million replacing him with the South Korean Heung-Min Son. An excellent season in Hamburg for the South Korean, as he played the support striker role and managed to get 12 league goals. This role suits Leverkusen perfectly and they will be hoping Heung-Min manages to forge a partnership with the consistently underrated goal machine Stefan Kieβling. More games will come this year for Leverkusen as they prepare to test themselves on the Champions League stage, making this season an interesting one for the South Korean and for Sammi Hyppia’s side.

Heung-Min Son’s movement and two goals as Hamburg beat Dortmund 3-2

Julien Draxler

Hardly an unknown quantity Draxler who is only 19 years old has played over 100 times already for Schalke. Last season he managed 11 goals which is an exceptional return for a 19 year old. His dribbling skills make him a joy to watch and he follows the recent German blueprint for tricky playmakers. This season may be the year he really explodes on to the scene however, the last two seasons Schalke have played with Raul, and then Lewis Holtby behind the main striker of Klass-Jan Huntelaar. This has resulted in Draxler playing predominantly from the left side, but after Holtby’s move to White Heart Lane in January, Draxler was moved centrally and his influences on games grew even larger. Already with 6 international caps and 1 goal to his name, Draxler looks sure to add to this in the future. Schalke have bought smartly and increased squad depth this season, and they will be hoping for a fruitful return to the Champions League via the qualifiers. Particularly after last season’s run which saw a great victory when they beat Arsenal 2-0 at the Emirates. This season with Draxler operating in the number 10 role we could see him blossoming on all fronts domestically, in Europe and internationally.

The passes Draxler received in the 1-0 win away to Gladbach. He starts the game on the left but eventually plays through the middle and gets the winner.

Moritz Leitner

Undoubtedly a top talent Moritz Leitner will have surely been left cursing his luck the last two seasons. A tidy player on the ball with excellent passing abilities Leitner has been restricted over the last two seasons to mostly substitute appearances for Dortmund. In his first season at the club he was limited by the form of the excellent Shinji Kagawa. When the Japanese international left he was then limited again by the blossoming of Mario Gotze in the number 10 role and Ilkay Gundogan’s dominance as the deep-lying playmaker. (Probably not helped by the return of fan favourite Nuri Sahin either.) This season though Leitner has been loaned out by Dortmund to VFB Stuttgart. At only 20 years old there is no doubting his obvious talents in possession of a football but this has always been restricted, this season if he is given regular football could see him really come into his own.  After all he in now fighting for his future at Dortmund, and a good season with Stuttgart could really give Jurgen Klopp a future headache.

Manchester United’s central midfield enigma and the man to solve it

Currently there is a dark cloud over Manchester with the transfer saga of Wayne Rooney and his much publicised desire to leave the club. Rooney had previously been touted as a future hall of famer at the club, with enough years left and enough skill to break the clubs all time scoring record. The capture of Robin Van Persie has left the striker frustrated but despite all of this he remains a key player for the club. The reason for this is because of Manchester United’s current style of play. 

The lack of penetration from midfield means that Manchester United’s build up play involves possession football through the middle with most of the penetration coming from the flanks in a 4-4-2. This is perhaps the reason that Rafael and Patrice Evra had such stand out seasons (Evra offensively.) The French full back finished the season with 4 goals and 5 assists domestically, a great return for a wing back. The only players to finish with more assists than Evra were Van Persie (8) and Wayne Rooney (10).

 This shows a key feature of their build up play was to get the ball in to their strikers and allow them to play, rather than the Chelsea method of having the players operating behind creating the chances for the strikers. Manchester United do not have this kind of penetration coming from behind, so must allow their strikers to work at creating their own opportunities for each other. This aspect of the game is one which Wayne Rooney is very useful at and contributes highly in Manchester United’s overall build up often coming deep to get on the ball.

Should Rooney leave then this may present Manchester United with a problem. Michael Carrick had easily his best season with the club, combining his world class ability to keep possession with his ability to perform a defensive duty through his reading of the game and interception making.  However Carrick’s role in the side is not a creator, he operates from deep as a distributor of the ball, getting it into the feet or sometimes into space in the channels for Manchester United’s more creative players to operate. Ferguson last season liked to deploy an energetic midfielder next to Carrick, often Tom Cleverly due to the fitness problems of Darren Fletcher and Anderson. Cleverly performs these duties well, however last season in the Premiership he averaged 1.7 tackles per game. Carrick not noted as the most physical of players averaged 2.3. Cleverly is a good short range passer, very tidy in possession but is not the most creative of players. Last season according to WhoScored.com the midfielder had 3 assists in all competitions but all came in games he was asked to fill in on the flanks rather than coming from his central play.

Rooney leaving gives Manchester United a conundrum centrally, as without his 10 assists and his ability to create from the middle Manchester United really struggle for penetration that isn’t coming from the strikers themselves or from wide players. One possible solution is the outrageously talented Shinji Kagawa. However the Japanese playmaker plays best when he operates behind the lone striker in that pocket of space, most often in a 4-2-3-1 rather than centrally in a 4-4-2. United could easily go out and buy a very technically gifted playmaker to create from deep, but this could upset the natural balance of the squad. Because United enjoy build up through the wide areas and letting full backs bomb on, whoever operates centrally must have the ability to be defensively solid as well as comfortable opening up teams.

Another transfer saga United are involved in is to capture the Catalan superstar and ex Arsenal captain Fabregas. The midfielder is frankly wonderful in possession. Neat, tidy and with a wonderful passing range there is no doubt that Fabregas would be an excellent addition to the Manchester United central midfield. It is difficult to compare La Liga stats with Premiership stats because of the drastic variation in styles of both leagues but last season Fabregas only attempted 1.4 tackles per game. The defensive side of things is not the Spaniards main strength and with the reports that the fee to land the star could be in excess of £35million, perhaps Manchester United could land a more suitable player for less money.

What Manchester United are looking for then, is a midfielder who would be comfortable next to Michael Carrick in midfield. A midfielder who is comfortable with the physical side of the game, and who also has ability to make play from deep, rather than operate behind the striker. One particular player who could solve this puzzle might well be the Chilean midfielder Arturo  Vidal contracted to Italian champions Juventus.  In 38 starts and 2 sub appearances in Serie A and in the Champions League last season Vidal averaged an impressive 13 goals and 10 assists, all coming from a central midfield area. The Chilean made on average 4.9 tackles per game which is significantly higher than Carrick, Cleverly or Fabregas. In Serie A he also averaged a pass success rate of 87% which would complement the ball keeping abilities of Michael Carrick well. With these statistics it may well be that Vidal has suddenly become Europe’s best all round midfielder.

The Rooney debacle has still to be played out, who knows what will end up happening in the race for the striker, what we do know is that Manchester United do not want to sell but the player wants to leave. Regardless of this, Moyes strongly feels the need to add a top quality central midfielder to his ranks and just perhaps the Chilean Vidal might be the solution to his midfield puzzle. 

Why Tottenham’s desire to keep Gareth Bale may be ego rather than sense

Cast your mind back to little over twelve months ago and to another transfer saga involving the North London club and Spanish giants Real. The move saw the Croatian star Luka Modric move to the Spanish capital and despite attempts to capture players like Joao Moutinho, Villas-Boas never really signed a like for like replacement for the clever playmaker. Instead he strengthened his squad in the midfield area using numbers. Mousa Dembele, Clint Dempsey, Gylfi Sigurdsson and then in January, Lewis Holtby were added to the rooster at White Hart Lane vastly improving the quality in depth of the side, despite none of them being a direct like for like replacement for the departed Croatian.

These additions helped fill the void left by Modric, coupled with the scintillating form of Gareth Bale. This in addition to the defensive stability as well and the ability to play from the back, (thanks to the excellent capture of Jan Vertonghen,) helped Tottenham incorporate Villas-Boas’ style of football and brought them ultimately within the cusp of a much desired Champions League return. There were positives throughout the side, the form of full back Kyle Walker who finished the season with 36 premiership appearances, with the form of defensive midfielder Sandro, who if remains fit provides an excellent defensive platform for 

Tottenham’s creative players to showcase their natural ability.

The one area where Tottenham were let down was in front of goal. Last season they averaged 17.9 shots on goal per game. Let’s call this 18 for easiness. This was the second highest in the league only behind Liverpool. Despite this Tottenham finished the season with 66 goals, tied with Manchester City but beaten by Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United. Of the 66 goals that Tottenham did score, 21 of those came from Gareth Bale meaning that without him they only managed 45 goals.

As mentioned previously, getting shots away and creating chances is not the issue for Spurs the issue remains goals. Jermaine Defoe continues to show that he will score goals for the North London club, his return of 11 in the Premiership was decent but from 27 starts and 7 sub appearances his return could have been better. Emmanuel Adebayor is notoriously frustrating for Tottenham fans who as you could imagine would be left annoyed by his poor return of only 5 goals in 18 starts and 7 sub appearances. This shows that the underlying problem for Spurs is the required quality up front to start pushing for that Champions League spot.

This brings us to the subject of Gareth Bale and the interest from Real Madrid which is now rumoured to be surfacing on the €100million mark. There is no denying that Gareth Bale is an extremely, extremely talented footballer, but that kind of money represents an excellent return on the reported £10million investment in 2007. However the problem for Spurs is that if they do sell Bale to the Spanish giants, this is the second summer in a row that they have sold their key asset to the Madrid side. As far as the fans go they have higher ambitions for their club than to become a selling side to the giants of Europe, they envision their side amongst Europe’s elite. Who could blame them? With a talented, vibrant squad with a young exciting manager few could argue that Spurs have the potential to eventually break the premiership top four with a little more smart investment.

Top goal scorers cost money. Lots of it. A 25 goal a season striker, on paper can cost a premiership side on upwards of 30 million, based on the recent transfers in and out of the premiership. Players like Aguero, Van Persie, & Torres have been bought for huge sums for a guarantee of goals. (Not all have provided,) and players like Suarez are now being quoted in the £40million plus bracket. Spurs where at the same cross roads last season, where they realised that they would have to fork out huge sums of money to get a direct replacement for one of the world’s best playmakers Luka Modric. Instead they concentrated on improving the overall quality throughout the squad in numbers rather than on one individual. €100 million is a lot of money for Gareth Bale, a truly wonderful player.

 Spurs realise that they cannot take the money and invest it in a direct replacement for Bale, perhaps one of the main reasons they are so desperate not to sell.

 Instead Villas Boas may look to emulate last summer, by signing not one direct replacement for Bale, but instead looking for goal scorers, maybe two or three that can add the necessary quality to the squad. Looking at it from a purely mathematical basis Villas Boas needs to buy 21 premiership goals and 4 assist and then he has matched Gareth Bale’s contribution. Any more than this and it has been surpassed. Is this possible? With €100 million to spend it certainly is. 

Perhaps Spurs need to forget the sentimental value and adoration they have for Bale and realise that the money being offered grants them all kinds of opportunities in the race for the Champions League spot and who knows, one season soon maybe further.