Bundesliga 2016/17

Synco said:
I thought about that too, but Dortmund already have 3 major talents + Passlack competing for one spot (if Reus is available). Schürrle is not good enough to replace Mkhitaryan directly, yet too established to give up much playing time for the youngsters. So it's more the squad composition that seems problematic to me, which would be the same if Schürrle came for 15m (or on a free for that matter).

Maybe the prognosis for Reus' long time health is so bad that he can't be reckoned with and Tuchel needs an additional experienced player; that would make the whole thing more understandable. But then again: Why did they buy two high calibre talents in addition to Pulisic if they have no room to play all of them regularly?
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We don´t? I´m sorry but our aim is to still be in the CL in the Winter and reach the final in the German cup. That means that we are looking at a season consisting of nearly 50 games. On top of that the majority of our players are Internationals so there are some additional games aswell.

Felix Passlack was largely used defensively so far by Tuchel and if he develops well I rather see him competing with Piszcek for the RB or RWB position.

Emre Mor turned a lot of heads at the EURO with his fresh and technical play, but also showed what he still lacked in the one game he started, when he completely ran out of gas after an hour. The transition from the Danish league to the Bundesliga in terms of intensity, physicality and speed of play is rather significant and should not be underestimated. At least in the first season half I don´t see him featuring as starter outside the occasional game and getting integrated by sub appearances.

Chrisitan Pulisic is further in his integration in the team and league and I expect him to be ahead Mor in the internal pecking order, but he is also still 17 years old. We did well in developing him carefully in the past season and he will continue to get his chances this season.

Ousmane Dembele is so far probably the best player of the pre season and the talent with the biggest claim of a starter spot, which he will have in all likelihood until Reus has fully recovered. If he impresses enough or outperforms Schürrle he will play from the start. Tuchel does not field teams based on names as he has proven last season.

Basically, Pulisic and Dembele will be the direct back ups for the two experienced wide players and with Mor we will have a talent waiting to be developed.

I really don´t see how the signing of Schürrle has changed the situation of the talents compared to when we signed them. Back then the clear plan was still to get Mkhitaryan to sign a new contract. The biggest difference now is that the youngsters face internal competition which at least in theory should be easier to overcome. All it takes is a single injury and one of the youngsters starts. Additionally given Tuchel´s tendency to rotate rather heavily the talents will get game time regardless.
 
I can't believe Schurrle is only 25, I really thought he was much older than that - around 27-28 at least.
 
HSV will sign Kostic for €14m in the next days.

If HSV could now sign another good CB to replace Spahic then i guess they could get the 7th place.

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Sean_RedDevil said:
If HSV could now sign another good CB to replace Spahic then i guess they could get the 7th place.
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Spahic is good enough for us at the moment, certainly the best defender at the club. I hope Cleber continues with his development, he has all the attributes but sometimes he's way too aggressive in 1on1s.
The weak spot is Ostrzolek atm, but I hope he can perform better with a competent winger ahead of him. Otherwise he needs to be replaced. And Sakai is our RB, he's been really good, especially when you're used to Diekmeiers kick and rush football. :lol:

But yeah I've been really impressed with our transfer strategy this summer. No player signed that is older than 24, a couple of really good players mixed with a few promising talents.
 
Blackwidow said:


Nice service. They should do that with the transfers, too... :cool:
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There were legendary muppet frenzies during the transfers of (I think) Robben & Martínez, when transfermarkt users themselves tracked flights possibly carrying the players and posted regular updates. :lol:
 
Kampl was better than Calhanoglu last season in my opinion. I still think the latter doesn't offer enough quality in open play to start for a good team. Not sure if his set-pieces are enough to keep him in the side over Kampl. I'm really looking forward to see Aranguiz play regularly. He looked amazing whenever I've seen him and it was so unlucky that he got seriously injured in training last season before he played a single game for Leverkusen.
 
Balu said:
Kampl was better than Calhanoglu last season in my opinion. I still think the latter doesn't offer enough quality in open play to start for a good team. Not sure if his set-pieces are enough to keep him in the side over Kampl. I'm really looking forward to see Aranguiz play regularly. He looked amazing whenever I've seen him and it was so unlucky that he got seriously injured in training last season before he played a single game for Leverkusen.
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Calhanoglu (Last season: 9 goals + 11 assists in all competitions) must surely improve for a top 3 club no doubt.....but i don't rate Kampl (4 goals and 5 assists) and don't see how he has really "better" than Calhanoglu.

And yeah Aranguiz will be surely a very important player.
 
Kampl played a lot less minutes than Calhanoglu and at a deeper position, comparing them via goals and assists is silly.
 
Sean_RedDevil said:
I think that Leverkusen will really challenge Dortmund for the 2nd place if they can keep together the squad.

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Bench: Özcan, Tah, Papadopoulos, Baumgartlinger, Kampl, Volland, Kiessling
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Same squad as last season, bar Dragovic. And it remains to be seen whether he can displace Tah. I doubt it. It could also mean that Toprak might get green light for his move to Dortmund after all.
No way they'll be challenging Dortmund. They were like 20 pts behind them, and Dortmund had a way better transfer window, regardless of Hummels.
 
Challenge Dortmund for 2nd place, haha. It will be a really tough battle between Bayern and Dortmund for the title, with the next teams -i.e. Leverkusen, Wolfsburg, Schalke, Gladbach, Hertha in no particular order- watching from afar.
At least that's how I expect it ahead of this season.
 
2ndTouch said:
Same squad as last season, bar Dragovic. And it remains to be seen whether he can displace Tah. I doubt it. It could also mean that Toprak might get green light for his move to Dortmund after all.
No way they'll be challenging Dortmund. They were like 20 pts behind them, and Dortmund had a way better transfer window, regardless of Hummels.
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It remains to be seen if we will be able to archive the same kind of consistency we had last season, though. We have the stronger first team and certainly the better squad, but no one knows how soon we find our rythm with the high amount of new players. If we get off a good start we might pull away pretty quickly, but Leverkusen should not be underestimated either. They are by quite some distance the third best team of the league on paper, I actually rate the difference between them and the rest of the CL competition larger than between us and them.

With us in transition on the pitch and Bayern with a new coach, they might actually get closer to the top 2 than they have been in years. And quite frankly they need to do that because otherwise they could be in for a very rough transfer Summer 2017. Leno and Hernandez have contracts, which will run out in 2018, Toprak has a well known release clause, Brandt has one aswell, although I don´t think the price and moment of activation is known right now, would not surpise me if Calhanoglu has one, too. That´s half their first team and in difference to us they might actually not see that much cash for it.

If there was ever something like "Leverkusen´s year", it might very well be this season.
 
Sphaero said:
If there was ever something like "Leverkusen´s year", it might very well be this season.
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There is no such thing as "Leverkusen's year". Might as well predict Wenger to win the CL and retain the next 5 seasons to come
 
do.ob said:
Kampl played a lot less minutes than Calhanoglu and at a deeper position, comparing them via goals and assists is silly.
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This. Calhanoglu is a damn good player, but Kampl--quite a talented footballer in his own right--had the better season in 2015-2016. In fact, word is that Leverkusen might be considering offers for the former.

With the addition of Volland and the fact that they'll have Aranguiz from the outset this time (he only came back from his Achilles injury with about five matches remaining in the season), I definitely expect them to be better this year.
 
They might also play 3 atb stuff like:
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Volland played as RWB for Hoffenheim iirc, Wendell is a bit suspect in defence anyway, with Tah, Toprak and Dragovic (replaced him with Jedvaj here, because he's not in the lineup yet) they'd have three quality CBs who are all too reputable to sit on the bench in Leverkusen (as well as Papadopoulos as 4th in line). It would make perfect FM sense to try it :lol:


Though I see neither Volland (stagnated since the initial hype) nor Dragovic as huge improvements for their first team I expect them to be much stronger this season: Last year Aranguiz, Bender, Toprak each missed half the season or more, which really hurt them, the fact that they are fit (for) now is already a big improvement for them. They also managed to keep their entire squad together, not one important player was sold or is injured, so it's not unlikely that they hit the ground running and on top of that they also strengthened their depth a lot with da Costa, Baumgartlingerm Öztunali and Volland. WIth Brandt and Henrichs they also have two youngsters who looked like they made the next step towards the end of last season.

On the other hand they haven't convinced me yet that they can dominate and control a match via possession (something which seems necessary to challenge for the title nowadays and since age appears to have caught up with Kießling their striker position seems very thin and they completely depend on Chicharito to keep up his form.
I see them finishing around 70-75 points at the end.


Dortmund is a bit of a question mark to me, I think they had a very good window and even though making Schürrle the club's new record signing seemed unthinkable to me not too long ago I can see how it makes a bit of sense as an insurance against the volatile nature of young attackers. But still they lost three world class players and I see neither Götze nor Dembele (at least not in the short term) reach the level of Mkhitaryan last season. Maybe growth as a team can make up for some of the individual losses, maybe not.
I see them finishing around 75-85 points. Probably somewhere between Bayern and Leverkusen and I reckon closer to the latter.
 
do.ob said:
I see them finishing around 70-75 points at the end.
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That would be Leverkusen's best ever points finish, right? Not sure about that. If they can get close to 70, it would already be really impressive after finishing 3rd on 60 points last season. We'll have to wait how much that'll be worth next season.
 
2ndTouch said:
Same squad as last season, bar Dragovic. And it remains to be seen whether he can displace Tah. I doubt it. It could also mean that Toprak might get green light for his move to Dortmund after all.
No way they'll be challenging Dortmund. They were like 20 pts behind them, and Dortmund had a way better transfer window, regardless of Hummels.
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They have bought Volland, Baumgartliner & Özcan too and Aranguiz feels like a "new signing".

Everyone of Toprak, Tah and Dragovic could be on the bench.....that was not my point.

Dortmund have lost more players as just Hummels like you know and i'm not really impressed with Dortmund's signings apart from Dembele & Guerreiro.
GhastlyHun said:
Challenge Dortmund for 2nd place, haha. It will be a really tough battle between Bayern and Dortmund for the title, with the next teams -i.e. Leverkusen, Wolfsburg, Schalke, Gladbach, Hertha in no particular order- watching from afar.
At least that's how I expect it ahead of this season.
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haha
 
Sean_RedDevil said:
They have bought Volland, Baumgartliner & Özcan too and Aranguiz feels like a "new signing".
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None of these players make Leverkusen a better squad, they merely broaden it. And for sure they don't change anything about Schmidt's tactically inflexible, onedimensional pressing approach. As a manager he is at least a tier below Tuchel, rather two.

Sean_RedDevil said:
Dortmund have lost more players as just Hummels like you know and i'm not really impressed with Dortmund's signings apart from Dembele & Guerreiro.
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Yeah, they have lost Gündogan who wasn't a big factor in the season, and Mkhitaryan with whom you probably weren't overly impressed 12 months ago, either.
Bottom line, the signings of Dembele, Götze, Schürrle and Mor should more than make up for the loss of the armenian, Guerreiro is a true upgrade to Schmelzer, and Merino as well as Rode give Tuchel more options in the CM than he had before.
So, that leaves only Hummels' departure as significant. Not significant enough to believe Leverkusen could close a 18pt gap, though.
 
Leverkusen has a damn good squad both in regards to the first eleven and in regards to their depth everywhere but on the FB position. Hasn't Volland also scored like 6 goals in their last 2 friendlies. I expect him to shine once again this season. I don't see Leverkusen having any major weaknesses aside of the fact that their fullbacks have their eyes on attacking and sometimes look lost in defence.

Kampl played a better season than Calhanoglu for sure. He had some standout performances in the middle of the season.
 
NoLogo said:
Everything that's closer than 20 points between the two counts as a tough battle in the Bundesliga these days.
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You know, the PL was decided before the Bundesliga last season, and won by the same margin :p
 
Keeps It tidy said:
Bundesliga has had a few surprise winners as well.
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Those times are gone. But that was back in the day when Bayern wasn't as much of an Uberteam as they are now.

Maybe Dortmund as a chance of snatching a title of them but surprise winners, no chance the gap between Bayern and the rest of the league is too big, I would argue even the distance between Dortmund and the rest of the league is increasing as well, only with Leverkusen, Wolfsburg and Schalke having slight chances to keep up.

Who knows if Redbull pours enough money into the team we might see them spring a surprise win but apart from it's going to be total Bayern dominance for as long as they have such a significant financial advantage over their opponents and don't entirely feck things up in the squad building department, which doesn't look to likely.
 
2ndTouch said:
None of these players make Leverkusen a better squad, they merely broaden it. And for sure they don't change anything about Schmidt's tactically inflexible, onedimensional pressing approach. As a manager he is at least a tier below Tuchel, rather two.



Yeah, they have lost Gündogan who wasn't a big factor in the season, and Mkhitaryan with whom you probably weren't overly impressed 12 months ago, either.
Bottom line, the signings of Dembele, Götze, Schürrle and Mor should more than make up for the loss of the armenian, Guerreiro is a true upgrade to Schmelzer, and Merino as well as Rode give Tuchel more options in the CM than he had before.
So, that leaves only Hummels' departure as significant. Not significant enough to believe Leverkusen could close a 18pt gap, though.
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Volland and Aranguiz definitely improve the squad, and Baumgartlinger is an upgrade on Kramer, whom they sold to Gladbach, so I have to disagree with you there.
 
Sometimes charity matches are fun, too. I am watching Nowitzki Allstars against the Formula 1 drivers right now - somebody else?

 
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Blackwidow said:
Sometimes charity matches are fun, too. I am watching Nowitzki Allstars against the Formula 1 drivers right now - somebody else?

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Greatest active German sportsman right now, his humor is brilliant! :lol:Gonna steal that for the NBA thread in the Other Sport sub forum.
 
Kasper said:
Greatest active German sportsman right now, his humor is brilliant! :lol:Gonna steal that for the NBA thread in the Other Sport sub forum.
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One of the greatest german sportsmen of all time, surely.
 
Darn, I only noticed this week that Kramer went back to Gladbach. T'is a shame for me as I really like him and Leverkusen are building a team full of players I'm fans of. Ah well, they still have Kampl who I've liked since Salzburg. Hopefully he carries on progressing there after his tough time at Dortmund.
 
2ndTouch said:
Yeah, they have lost Gündogan who wasn't a big factor in the season, and Mkhitaryan with whom you probably weren't overly impressed 12 months ago, either.
Bottom line, the signings of Dembele, Götze, Schürrle and Mor should more than make up for the loss of the armenian, Guerreiro is a true upgrade to Schmelzer, and Merino as well as Rode give Tuchel more options in the CM than he had before.
So, that leaves only Hummels' departure as significant. Not significant enough to believe Leverkusen could close a 18pt gap, though.
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And you were overly impressed with Götze & Schürrle in the last 3 years and you have seen Mor in the danish league???
 
From the guardian ticker of Dortmund-City which just ended:

34 mins: Dortmund’s transfers this summer – Out: Ilkay Gündogan, Mats Hummels and Henrikh Mkhitaryan. In: Mario Götze, André Schurrle, Ousmane Dembélé, Raphaël Guerreiro, Sebastian Rode, Marc Bartra, Emre Mor and Mikel Merino. Net spend: £6.5 million. That’s what they call decent business, isn’t it?
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I think their squad is not really weaker than last season, despite those high-profile transfers going out. Well-done business indeed.
 
Kasper said:
Greatest active German sportsman right now, his humor is brilliant! :lol:Gonna steal that for the NBA thread in the Other Sport sub forum.
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I never post in there and I started to talk about it here... -
So I post this photo here - somehow looks like Dirk is the football player surrounded by the kids (Vettel, Häkkinen) that come onto the field with them at the beginning.

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