Gladbach’s squad planner Steffen Korell: “On interesting players”

change announced

After the announced “upheaval” in the VfL squad, Borussia Mönchengladbach’s squad planner Steffen Korell has tried to reduce supporters’ concerns ahead of the coming season. He is confident that the Bundesliga club will have a strong team. “We will now join forces to end the season as well as possible,” said the 50-year-old in an interview with the “Rheinische Post”. “Then we will analyze why we had such problems and will not leave anything out. But nobody needs to be afraid: we will have a good team next season.”

Borussia is currently in eleventh place in the table and has a seven-point lead over the relegation rank. When it came to squad planning, Korell spoke of having to be patient. “We’re on the road a lot, have some ideas and are on the lookout for interesting players, but they also cost money,” he said. “We are prepared. The question is: When do we have the opportunity to implement something?” Korell said: “We have plans A, B and C for many positions and in an emergency we have to see whether we can buy or lend.”

Matthias Ginter is the only summer departure so far, although the 28-year-old has just emphasized again that he is not yet aware of his goal. Numerous other transfer rumors are entwined around current Borussia professionals such as Florian Neuhaus (25) or the storm trio Marcus Thuram (24), Breel Embolo (25) and Alassane Plea (28), each of which should bring in 15 million euros. For the arrivals side, the “colts” on the offensive should have the former Bochum and Dortmund Vangelis Pavlidis (23) from AZ Alkmaar in mind (all Borussia rumors about new players).

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AZ Alkmaar 44% Bor. M’gladbach Eredivisie Bundesliga

Borussia had not made the hoped-for transfers last summer due to the corona, and the planned contract extensions with top performers failed. In winter, midfielder Denis Zakaria (25) switched to Juventus Turin six months before his contract expired for 8.6 million euros – almost 20 million euros below his current market value.

In 2021, the club would have liked to generate necessary revenue from player sales, as in the case of Marcus Thuram (24, courted by Inter Milan), while only minor squad corrections had been made a year earlier. “In the summer of 2020, top performers didn’t want to leave either, because the feeling prevailed here: Maybe more is possible,” said Korell. At the end of that season there was fourth place in the Champions League. According to midfielder Christoph Kramer (31), the increased expectations and internal demands of the club led to the sporting decline.

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