He is a great talent, he is just not ready, I think Lingard would have a much bigger impact than any player at the moment on the fringes, he lacks physique but he is just so confident and natural, nothing seems to affect him mentally.
Januzaj | Confirmed: On Loan at Dortmund
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He is a great talent, he is just not ready, I think Lingard would have a much bigger impact than any player at the moment on the fringes, he lacks physique but he is just so confident and natural, nothing seems to affect him mentally.
Ha, was just going to post something just like this. I was thinking along the lines of LVG wanting to just get him away from things as he works Memphis and Martial in. All young guys, try to avoid any jealousy that might develop, plus get him needed game time at a decent club for doing that. One thing I think he better work on is his strength though. Both body and mind as he gets pushed off the ball pretty easy and seems to sulk a bit when things start turning against him.
Selling Welbeck was a great decision. Got good money for a player that wanted to leave and isn't that good but still has high wages. Giving Young a 3 year extension was one of the summers worst piece of business.
It wasn't good money, it was okay money. He was on a mid level contract as well, it was like uprooting a fruit tree because it flowered, not knowing it could still have bared fruit.
I got to thinking about this Januzaj deal today at work... is it Chicharito of last year? Attitude/rift type stuff? Seems the only logical explanation to me.
Yes, dump our biggest talent so we can get a shiny new toy.
I like Adnan but I dont think he is our biggest talent
This reminds me of what happened to Alaba at Bayern Munich. Van Gaal promoted him to the first team, but he more or less stopped playing him after a mediocre game against Frankfurt. He struggled for minutes in the following season and was loaned out. Januzaj has had many more chances than Alaba, but he had the luxury of playing in the Premier League before Van Gaal arrived so that probably helped him.
I think Van Gaal rates Januzaj, but he was probably on the fence regarding how much of an impact he can have on the first team hence he gave him a few games to assess his value. I don't think he did too badly and being an impact player off the bench is what he should have been for us this season, but a move to Borussia Dortmund is great for his education. He'll be training under a different regime, one that suits his direct style IMO. He'll hopefully improve his ball retention skills (which he's actually been better at compared to his last two seasons), how to move off the ball, and positional discipline, all of which are severely lacking. Plus he's going to be working with Reus, Mkhitaryan, and Kagawa. FWIW, all three have been excellent this season.
Tuchel wanted a different player on the right, specifically a left footer. He couldn't get Yarmolenko, so he went for Januzaj, who is an unpolished talent but saves you the hassle of panic buying. No one knows how much playing time he'll get a Dortmund, but I think he's going to surprise many people with his performances.
I think Van Gaal rates Januzaj, but he was probably on the fence regarding how much of an impact he can have on the first team hence he gave him a few games to assess his value. I don't think he did too badly and being an impact player off the bench is what he should have been for us this season, but a move to Borussia Dortmund is great for his education. He'll be training under a different regime, one that suits his direct style IMO. He'll hopefully improve his ball retention skills (which he's actually been better at compared to his last two seasons), how to move off the ball, and positional discipline, all of which are severely lacking. Plus he's going to be working with Reus, Mkhitaryan, and Kagawa. FWIW, all three have been excellent this season.
Tuchel wanted a different player on the right, specifically a left footer. He couldn't get Yarmolenko, so he went for Januzaj, who is an unpolished talent but saves you the hassle of panic buying. No one knows how much playing time he'll get a Dortmund, but I think he's going to surprise many people with his performances.
Great talent but I get the feeling, might not be suited for the PL. At present not strong enough to play 10 when your having to deal with defensive midfielders or CB's pushing up on to you. Think he'll be much better when he's 25/26, just not sure whether he'll be here by then?
Well, the Alaba loan to Hoffenheim for half a season was certainly a well executed action to develop the Austrian. He was already strong enough to improve the first team of Hoffenheim and his sheer versatility in terms of positions (LB/LW/CM/DM) allowed him to play pretty much all the availabe game time.
I don´t see the similarity to this deal, though. Januzaj is like Alaba back then in the middle of his development and while he technically went into his third EPL season, in actual game time he has only one full season under his belt. He is still fairly raw and probably just at the beginning of his development curve. Logically he should be treated as the talent he is and that is often not possible for ambitious clubs who want to win titles, so they loan out or sell players with rebuy clauses. A loan deal in itself is understandable, albeit surprising because no player for his position came in which stretches United pretty thin there.
As destination they chose us and I read a lot of posters being very happy about that choice. "Better than to send him to Sunderland" was probably my favourite so far. They refer to our style or culture of play, our pretty highly rated coach, the atmosphere, the quality of his team mates and so on. I mean, I´ll take all the compliments I can get about my club, but what they don´t take into account are the circumstances of this deal.
In general, clubs which loan for such short amounts of time (half - full season) without buy clauses do not care about the development of the players. They don´t benefit from developing them, because the time frames are way too short to get anything meaningful out of this. We are the same. We don´t loan Januzaj, because we want to help United or Januzaj on his way to a top class player. We loan him to have a player who performs under certain circumstances, in his case to rest starters, to replace them if they are injured and as impact sub. Him being a left footer might help him in a few situations to get the edge over Hofmann, but it won´t bring him into the starting XI without injuries of the starters. All three of our first choice offensive midfielder are both footed, so no need there.
The problem with us seeing him as a squad player instead of a talent is, that there will be no compromises because of the promise of future performances. All that counts are the current performances, no easing into a new league or more freedom to make mistakes as talents should have. He either hits the ground running for us and uses the few chances he will get to impress or falls in the internal ranking rather quickly.
There are also other dangers for Januzaj here. If we indeed loan him without a realistic option to keep him longer, it simply means that we did not get one of the permanent solutions we wanted. Nobody knows if these options become available in the Winter window, though. Worst case scenario for Januzaj would probably be if someone like Yarmolenko decides to sign for us then and takes up all the game time which he would have gotten. There is no cost in sending the Belgian to the stands for us, because United was kind enough to loan him to us without a fee (some reports even state United still pays half his salary). Similar to that would it be if one of our highly talented academy talents, who currently train under Tuchel, catches the coaches eye and he sees room to give him a first taste of first team football in front of 80.000 people. You can bet that he rather gives him minutes than some Belgian kid who is gone in the Summer.
No matter what details this loan deal include, one thing for me is pretty certain. Van Gaal had no problem to screw over Januzaj here. He either gave him up alltogether or send him to a club, where it will be harder to succeed than at home. This in itself contradicts what a loan move should be about. Mourinho got a lot of (deserved) flak on here for his dealing with De Bruyne, but he had at least the sense to send him to Bremen, where he was welcomed with open arms and even some stupid interviews would not stop them from fielding him every week, because it was bloody obvious he was their best offensive player. He benefited a lot from his first season in Germany.
For Januzaj on the other hand, there will be a pretty high chance that he will look back to his season at Dortmund in a year and see a wasted one. He might have picked up a few things in training, but nothing, absolutely nothing beats consistent game time at the stage of his development.
I agree, that this loan is slightly pointless, because United could make good use of him, but if he is as talented as many claim, he´ll get lots of time on the pitch in Dortmund. There are three players clearly ahead of him (reus, Micki and Kagawa), but he can easily become the 4th option. Dunno why you are so negative about it.
Nah, not really. Easily becoming the 4th option would mean getting ahead of Jonas Hofmann, who knows the system, is highly rated by Tuchel and performed well in both the Pre season and the official games. He also has priority simply by having a higher standing than a loan player. To edge him out Januzaj would need to actually outperform him.
Then there is the integration of Gonzalo Castro, who is a proven Bundesliga midfielder and on a contract until 2019. He is also according to Tuchel a clear option for the offensive midfield and not just the CM. This process has of course also priority over giving a loan player game time.
Don´t get me wrong, Januzaj will get his chances and will also start a few games, probably more in the EL than the league, but he has to take these chances right from the start. As a player, who does not know either the league or the system and comes in without a Pre season this is not an easy task. I still remember how much Kagawa struggled at the start of his 2nd tenure with us and he got away with way more poor performances than Januzaj will.
The comparison to Alaba is a bit odd. Alaba didn't get any playing time from van Gaal in his 2nd season besides a few very short sub appearances and Alaba himself pushed strongly for the loan. Van Gaal came out publicly and said that Alaba would learn more while training with him than while playing for Hoffenheim. And it was quite obvious that van Gaal wasn't happy that the board allowed Alaba to leave and forced Gustavo as a replacement on him.
It seems to be the exact opposite in Januzaj's case. He got lots of playing time so far this season and there wasn't a reason for him to push for a loan deal unless van Gaal told him to. From what I know, van Gaal doesn't like loan deals. He doesn't consider playing time as important and believes that his coaching is what makes players better. Maybe he completely changed his opinion on that, but to me it looks like he simply doesn't rate Januzaj that highly.
Alaba was also a few years younger than Januzaj is now if I'm not mistaken. (2 years younger, 18 vs 20, but that's a big difference when it comes to the development of young players).
It seems to be the exact opposite in Januzaj's case. He got lots of playing time so far this season and there wasn't a reason for him to push for a loan deal unless van Gaal told him to. From what I know, van Gaal doesn't like loan deals. He doesn't consider playing time as important and believes that his coaching is what makes players better. Maybe he completely changed his opinion on that, but to me it looks like he simply doesn't rate Januzaj that highly.
Alaba was also a few years younger than Januzaj is now if I'm not mistaken. (2 years younger, 18 vs 20, but that's a big difference when it comes to the development of young players).
Juventus, who were another option, apparently, may have been the better option. They seemed pretty hard up for no 10's, and are quite underwhelmed with Hernanes.
OK, that certainly sounds like something van Gaal would say
Maybe we will learn more about the reasons in the next pressers of Dortmund and United.
If he can´t outperform Hofmann he is screwed anyway. Hofmann showed promising glimpses, but that is the kind of competition that you need to get around, if you want to play for any CL club. I am certain, that he´ll get a very fair chance to prove himself and than it is up to him. Dortmund won´t just throw him under the bus. I also wouldn´t be surprised, if your management has reasonable hope, that they might be able to convince Januzaj/United to come to a permanent arrangement (if things go well).
My guess is that LvG doesn´t rate him too high, but parts of the United management have a different opinion. With the loan deal they have the option to re-evaluate their position in a year (e.g. with new manager).
Weird timing of his departure. The game at Aston Villa we were all surprised he was included then he scored a goal and got a run of games. The van Gaal decides to loan him . So unpredictable.
. So unpredictable.Good loan. He will play there and hopefully get enough minutes to get some traction.
Weird timing of his departure. The game at Aston Villa we were all surprised he was included then he scored a goal and got a run of games. The van Gaal decides to loan him
Is it really though? Januzaj has been out of the team for a while (including last season), did reasonably ok on tour but aside from his goal and a few touches and passes he hasn't been great when he's had his chance this year.
After the matches van Gaal repeatedly has been asked about Januzaj and he kept saying things like that he wasn't pleased with his overall performances besides his goal. If van Gaal doesn't rate the current Januzaj it's a good decision to loan him, benching him for another year wouldn't be good at his age. I think Dortmund is a good club playing style-wise for him. I do wonder why he did go there though, seems a bit ambitious for a youngster that needs gametime to go to a topclub in Germany on loan.
Weird timing of his departure. The game at Aston Villa we were all surprised he was included then he scored a goal and got a run of games. The van Gaal decides to loan him
He's been given a chance, but hasn't really impressed. Apart from that goal he's looked out of his depth, he did last season too. We can't afford to blood a young player if he's not performing, in the hope he'll come good. People may cite Memphis but imo he's already got more about him than Januzaj.
There has to be a conflict of interests between himself and Van Gaal. Or some form of attitude problem which caused him to want to go on loan. Makes no sense just to send him on football merit, he could get the same development here. I have to say thinking along those lines makes me slightly paranoid.
For me it's the speed that dortmund play with that will help Januzaj's progression the most.
No, we won´t. We will view him as what his current abilities (not his potential) represent in the team, which is the status of a squad player, the same one he had at least at United. Right now, it is a loan from one bench to another one.
Do you really think, that this is the right way to develop talent? There is a reason why the vast majority of current top players either originated from smaller clubs/less competive leagues or were given the chance to mature via loan deals to smaller clubs. Breaking through an academy of a top club is incredible hard because of the level of competition and the ambitions of said clubs. Januzaj managed an impressive debut two years ago and created a pretty big hype around him (also because it was one of the few positives back then). At that time I said on here that his talent was plain to see, but he would need to be developed carefully. What followed was a season, where he was shoved around between the first team and U21, getting two small runs of games and being frozen out again. Some may call "given a fair chance" I call it wrong expecations on a still fairly raw talent. To this day, he still did not even play 3.000 minutes in the EPL or any senior league for the matter.
Now, he is loaned on the last day of the transfer window (meaning no pre season, which is the time to lay the tactical and physical foundation for the season) to a different league, a different system and to a team with a similar strong competition as where he comes from.
Maybe this works out perfectly for him. He makes it into the starting XI in place of an injured key player and plays so well, that he stays there. He returns to United brimming with confidence and all these news ideas and impressions from the Bundesliga.
The more realistic scenario is, that he starts around a dozen games for us (quite frankly the only reason it is in the double digits is our fairly uncompetive EL group) and plays a bit more games than that as sub. He tries to learn as much as he can in the few real training sessions inbetween the two games every week and his performances will be decent to good for the most part.
United will probably still not know what to do with him, because the biggest evaluation they can make then is that he could not make it as a starter for a team which has three strong players in their prime on his positions.
Lastly, we won´t invest into a player out of hope that we might reach an agreement in the future. Thats not how our officials run things at Borussia Dortmund. There is either an agreement (likely attached to certain conditions) already in place or there isn´t one. It´s that simple. We won´t create such a dependence to another club.
Well, having played two full seasons as a starter for PSV Eindhoven might have something to do with it. Depay is on a completely different point in his development.
Chelsea get a lot of flack for the number of players they have on loan, but I think there's a lesson in there for us. We aren't the only club in football which has a very good record with youth. Times have changed now, no manager will have the patience to nurture youth and integrate them slowly like Sir Alex did. If the club felt that Januzaj wouldn't be getting enough chances this season, I think the right thing to do for his development would have been to send him on loan for a considerable period of time (more than a year) or sell him with a buyback clause. I don't know if two or three year loan deals are legal, but that would have made more sense than to send him on loan to Dortmund. He's basically going from bench at one of the top clubs in Europe to bench in one of the top clubs in Europe.
In a larger sense, we really need to go about having some sort of agreement with an English team and a European team for loaning our players or selling them temporarily. This neither here neither there approach we seem to follow with youth will take us nowhere.
In a larger sense, we really need to go about having some sort of agreement with an English team and a European team for loaning our players or selling them temporarily. This neither here neither there approach we seem to follow with youth will take us nowhere.
Chelsea´s approach to loan out every player there is doesn´t seem to help them either.
Courtois made a very good loan & Chelsea have done very well out of it.
I'd say Chelsea are doing very well out of their approach, loan em out for experience & sell them for a profit if they don't look like they'll make it. Obviously the players on loan will have to perform exceptionally well to return to the club & displace one of the 1st team players.
Also factor in they loan a player who can't play against them, so strengthening domestic rivals, then weakening them when the encounter Chelsea.
Will he get a chance to feature on a regular basis do you think?
Probably not.
The whole thing is odd. We are lacking quality options for the wide positions and we send out our best young prospect on loan.
He hasn't been effective as a starter this season and I think the manager is trying assemble a bench that is completely made up of effective role players, which would explain the loan move.
Strenghtening our relationship with BVB is also an added bonus.
For me they're similar because in these two cases, Van Gaal rated Alaba and rates Januzaj but couldn't fit them into his first team plans even as squad rotation options, which is a little worrying in Januzaj's case because he's had the privilege of playing a full PL season and played significantly more games than Alaba did under Van Gaal (if we compare their first seasons under him). Alaba was injured in the first couple of months of the 10/11 season, and didn't play a lot of minutes when he returned. When he was loaned out, Van Gaal hinted that the loan could be extended, so I don't think he had that much of a problem with it. And I suspect that in Januzaj's case, he wasn't performing well enough to merit more minutes than last season. Which is absurd if you ask most people.
Again I understand Januzaj's played a full season in the PL before Van Gaal arrived, but the comparison is valid IMO (or maybe I'm looking for some sort of comparison and I'm being disingenuous). The major difference being that Alaba went to a team where he was more or less guaranteed lots of minutes, which is what young players need (most of what Sphaero said, I agree with). What's important to note is that Januzaj didn't even manage to complete a full match this season. It's a weird decision because we're not in a strong position to loan him out and I think having him as an impact player (bringing him on for Mata for example) would have been better, but I'm not going into panic mode just yet. Borussia Dortmund is the perfect fit for him. Even if he doesn't play many minutes, I'll still deem it as a successful loan if he comes back and looks a better player. Obviously playing time isn't conducive in him developing as a player.
I still don't know why he could not have been considered for the right forward option.
When did he say that? I honestly don't remember, do you have a link to a source or something like that? If true, it would contradict what he initially said and would have made zero sense after seeing how Alaba played at Hoffenheim. Alaba was clearly good enough to get a lot of minutes for Bayern at that point and was a regular starter a few months into the next season.
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Have a terrible feeling that he may never come back here.
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He's not good enough to start yet so what's the point in leaving him to waste away on the bench? He'll hopefully get valuable game time at Dortmund and come back a far better player.
What @Sphaero says makes a lot of sense. It looks like he'll need some luck (or bad luck for Dortmund players) and hit the ground running to really get anything worthwhile from the loan.
Has anyone heard anything about a recall option?
Has anyone heard anything about a recall option?
I don't remember anything like that ever included in a loan deal in German football. It would be just stupid from Dortmund to agree to something like that. It's such a one sided advantage and makes zero sense for the club taking the player on loan. Why would they ever agree to something like that?
Well if Reus continues his bad injury luck from the last season I think Januzaj may get enough playing time.
Another thing that actually makes me quite positive that he will see more game time with them than he did with us is the fact that he is left footed and Tuchel actually mentioned that he really wanted a left footed attacking player. Add on top of that, that Tuchel likes to rotate to keep his players from tiring too much and I guess he will get enough minutes this season to impress.
Another thing that actually makes me quite positive that he will see more game time with them than he did with us is the fact that he is left footed and Tuchel actually mentioned that he really wanted a left footed attacking player. Add on top of that, that Tuchel likes to rotate to keep his players from tiring too much and I guess he will get enough minutes this season to impress.
Presumably in order to get a better deal financially. The loan fee and wage contribution would be lower with a clause like that inserted (not that it's the case).
He has been. Just at Dortmund instead.
Yeah, that doesn't help us.. Haha.
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