Despite the precarious situation in the Bundesliga relegation battle, VfB Stuttgart was not in a position to make any major upgrades on the transfer market last January. On the contrary, the only really expensive transfer is with Naouirou Ahamada on the side of the departures.
The sale of the 20-year-old midfielder to England brought in twelve million euros to Crystal Palace. A lucrative offer that the VfB around the new sports director and chief squad planner Fabian Wohlgemuth could not refuse.
In the future, Stuttgart will have to master a difficult balancing act in order to get back on its feet in the Bundesliga and continue to develop sportingly, Wohlgemuth explained to “Sport Bild”.
“We will have to prepare for many small steps if we don’t want to constantly swing back and forth between existential worries and exaggerated expectations,” said the new manager of the Swabians.
VfB Stuttgart right in the middle of the Bundesliga relegation battle
In concrete terms, this means that the Stuttgart team will continue to give away promising talent in the future in order to generate important sums of millions with the transfer income. However, the sporting substance must not suffer too much, otherwise VfB threatens to degenerate into an elevator team.
In the current Bundesliga season, Stuttgart is concerned with nothing less than mere survival in the top flight of football. The team of new coach Bruno Labbadia is currently in relegation rank 16 and has not yet won a single game under the new coach. Only at the weekend did they lose to newly promoted Werder Bremen 0:2 (0:0) at home.
The only two external winter signings, Genki Haraguchi from Union Berlin and Gil Dias from Benfica, have each appeared on the pitch once each in a VfB jersey.