Borussia Mönchengladbach: squad plans with communicators & top talents

Sports director Virkus gives insights

Borussia Mönchengladbach’s sports director Roland Virkus announced in an interview with the “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland” that he intends to increasingly rely on his own youngsters when planning the squad in the future. Despite the imminent departure of top performers, the goal of the club must always be a single-digit place in the table, according to the 55-year-old, who wants to make national player Jonas Hofmann (29) and keeper Yann Sommer (33) the faces of the team.

The expectations on the Lower Rhine are traditionally high, which can be attributed to the successful work of the past few years. However, the club did not always make the right decision at the right time when it came to transfer strategy, Virkus said.

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“The fact is that they have performed well here for years because good decisions were made beforehand. I don’t want to rule out the possibility that at some point some people might have lost sight of reality. But the reality is also that a team has to constantly develop, needs refreshment again and again. Nevertheless, in individual cases a decision has been made against the previously very successful course of action of selling players at their peak. And yes, this may have raised public expectations that there could be more than fourth place. That didn’t work and now we may lose players who want to play internationally. But we can’t offer them that, at least this year. We have to get going again and bring potential to the squad,” explained Virkus.

So far only Matthias Ginter (28; target open) has been confirmed on the departure side. Possible changes by Marcus Thuram (24), Florian Neuhaus (25), Alassane Plea (29) or Ramy Bensebaini (26) have also been written a lot recently – without it really becoming concrete in the past few weeks. Jonas Hofmann (contract until 2023) left his future open himself. In “11Freunde” squad planner Steffen Korell also said: “We will sell without being able to replace someone of equal value.”

The players mentioned fit the transfer model that has made Gladbach so successful in recent years: Neuhaus once came on a free transfer from 1860 Munich, increasing his market value from 250,000 to up to 38 million euros by this rather mixed season. Thuram cost 9 million euros, its market value has meanwhile risen to 40 million euros. Bensebaini came for €8m and was worth up to €22m.

Virkus wants to keep Hofmann: “For me, the typical Gladbach player”

Hofmann in particular, who has quadrupled his market value since moving from Dortmund to the “Fohlen”, is for Virkus “a player that we would very much like to keep. For me he is the typical Gladbach player. He can start, is fast, has intelligence. And now he’s scoring goals too. But he wasn’t the only one who helped Borussia, Borussia also gave him something. Jonas always got his chance here, even when things weren’t going so well. Today he is a national player and could be the face of our new team, together with Yann Sommer. You don’t have to say a word about its meaning. In any case, I would never touch the goalkeeper position in a phase of upheaval, you need stability for that. Yann would guarantee us one hundred percent.”

Max Eberl’s successor assumes that not all top performers will leave the club, but regardless of that they want to “remain ambitious”: “Borussia’s goal must always be to achieve a single-digit place in the table.”

In the future, Virkus wants to focus his squad more around his own offspring and also scout external talent: “We have to rely on our own offspring. But we also have to keep looking to see if there are any top talents from outside who are a bit more advanced than our own youth players. And then maybe there are players who don’t do so well elsewhere, even though they have great potential. Finding them will be the big challenge. We need communicators – and preferably on the axis. Players with one-on-one skills, strong in communication and also typical for Gladbach, i.e. with ball possession skills.

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