Manuel Akanji left BVB for Manchester City shortly before the change deadline in the summer. The Swiss then engaged in a small public battle of words with Borussia Dortmund’s sports director Sebastian Kehl. Now the defender followed up again.
Basically everything had been said between Manuel Akanji and BVB, that’s what people thought. Sports director Sebastian Kehl recently reacted with incomprehension to the central defender’s public night out at “DAZN”. At Borussia Dortmund they would have “liked to extend with Manuel”, but it was the 27-year-old’s decision not to extend.
Since Manuel Akanji had communicated this early on, the Revierklub was able to sign two new preferred defenders in Niklas Süle and Nico Schlotterbeck in good time. “Nevertheless, I would have spared myself the statements that came afterwards,” said Kehl, referring to Akanji’s “Blick” interview.
In Dortmund, “things were said about me that were simply not true,” the new citizen said. He said he “never talked about numbers with BVB. It was never about the money. I thought it was crazy that I was accused of it out of nowhere.”
Akanji follows up: “I never said that I really wanted to change”
Now Manuel Akanji has once again looked back on his rather inglorious end in Dortmund. In conversation with the Swiss portal “20 minutes“He defended himself against the representation that he had pushed for a transfer: “I never said that I really wanted to change.”
Rather, the defensive specialist communicated that he “would like to take the next step” “if it is possible. That was often misinterpreted”.
At the beginning of the season, Manuel Akanji only found himself in the stands, since BVB head coach Edin Terzic only wanted to rely on those players who would definitely contest the season. He now “doesn’t want to talk too much” about how the situation in Dortmund was handled. “There are also some things that do not have to be made public. It is a chapter that I would like to put behind me now.”
Akanji passed the question of whether he could have returned to Borussia’s starting eleven in the event of a failed change to “those responsible” for the black and yellow. He “continued to step on the gas in training. I think that quality always wins out in the end”.