After a difficult Hinrunde, the team gets a chance to relax and recuperate before winter training camp starts. The team will be traveling to Belek, Turkey again. Not much budget room to work with, but there's a few players in discussions. Jonas Hofmann on loan from Dortmund has been brought up. Even though Grillitsch's contract has automatically been extended till 2017, Eichin will also be working to figure out a more formal long term deal. http://www.weser-kurier.de/werder/w...el,-Werders-Ja-zu-Skripnik-_arid,1277700.html
Winter schedule is ready with test matches set up against Erzgebirge Aue, Sivasspor, and FK Austria Wien. http://www.werder.de/de/profis/news/57438.php
Aycicek, Fröde, Busch, and von Haacke are all candidates to be loaned out this January. While Pavlovic is to be sold if we find an interested buyer. http://www.bild.de/sport/fussball/w...en-transfers-bis-silvester-43890450.bild.html
Hajrovic won't be returning early from loan at Eibar. Galvez is starting to draw interest from Hellas Verona. Kobylanski is another player we're now looking to sell. I think it's the right time that he makes the move to another club. Stagnating at this stage and he's really lost his place in the B team rotation with other younger talents emerging.
Sevilla apparently are also keeping tabs on Galvez now. A potential offer of up to 5 Mio has been mentioned.
With a solid campaign on loan at Darmstadt, Caldirola looks to be in our team's plans again when he returns for next season. He'd make a good replacement for Vestergaard if he were to be sold this summer.
Haris Belkebla from FC Tours is a player we might be possibly looking at. The 21 year-old French-Algerian central midfielder has reportedly also attracted interest from other Ligue 1, Bundesliga, and Serie A clubs. http://yourzone.beinsports.fr/footb...-haris-belkebla-revelation-de-ligue-2-100850/
Junuzovic will join the training camp in Belek but won't be able to participate in the friendlies as he still recovers from shoulder injury. No set timeline on his return but his goal is to be ready for the Schalke match. Johannsson won't be able to participate as he's still not ready yet. This does however open up a couple spots for new youngsters from the reserves. Leon Guwara and Georgi Papunashvili have been invited to train with the pros. They join others like Maxi Eggestein, Lorenzen, Fröde who are expected to remain in the top flight rotation. There will be no move made for a new backup keeper while Wolf continues his rehab. The team will rely on Zetterer and Husic if they are needed to step in. http://www.kicker.de/news/fussball/...l_junuzovic-gesund-und-munter-nach-belek.html
Sports Illustrated saying that Jordan Morris is training with Werder http://www.si.com/planet-futbol/2016/01/05/jordan-morris-seattle-sounders-werder-bremen
Nice! Will be interesting to see how he does. Morris looks like a solid young prospect. AJ must have been a factor in making this decision.
Official statement on Morris joining the team in Belek next week. http://www.werder.de/en/profis/57534.php
http://www.bt.dk/fodbold/paa-angriberjagt-i-bundesligaens-top-broendby-vil-gafle-ny-ibrahimovic This Danish source mentions that Werder are among several clubs interested in Branimir Hrgota. Probably won't get him this winter, but his contract with Gladbach does happen to expire in the summer. Worth keeping tabs on this, Hrgota is a quality talent who just needs more playing opportunity to grow as a player.
Especially with other clubs fighting relegation like Hannover and Stuttgart spending considerably already. But it's pretty tough to not have many resources to work with. Winning the prize money from advancing in the Pokal helps but looks like Eichin is being patient and trying to offload players like Pavlovic first to have a larger budget available before exploring options. His other main focus of course is to balance the books this year and finish on the plus side financially. Let's hope he's able to make some shrewd moves and the youngsters can help make an impact.
Jordan Morris was referred to Werder by US assistant coach Andreas Herzog. http://www.espnfc.us/united-states/...rris-sent-to-werder-bremen-via-andreas-herzog Herzog gives more info about Morris in this interview: http://www.kicker.de/news/fussball/...76/artikel_herzog_morris-passt-zu-werder.html
Looking at Werders financial balance it looks really dark. These problems are caused by decisions made some years ago, especially the stadium renovation project that ran out of control. I don't want to poison the mood here, but I believe the club is not well run. I don't mean Skripnik and Eichin here, who have to work with very lmited resources, but the people in the background. I am born less than 10 miles away from the stadium and know that there are regions in Germany with higher economic potential, but I also know that Werder is sympathic to people around the republic. So I ask myself how is it possible that the club makes a deficit on merchandising? How is it possible that for the stadium extension the cost almost doubled? How is it possible that in the last years a deficit was made although the club made gains on the transfermarket? People like Fischer brought up topics like finding an investor for Werder. One could already hear these ideas when Bode replaced Lemke as advisory board boss. Have there been any steps done? I know we are in the relegation fight and the club must stand together, but these structural problems need to be solved by the higher management. What I miss at Werder are goals and a vision, not by the coaching staff, but from the administrative management (Fischer, Filbry and co).
After the ranting about the higher management back to transfers rumors and the state of the team. The description Herzog gives in the Kicker article about Morris sounds interesting. We currently lack a pacy and thereby robust forward. But the biggest construction side I see is the midfield. In the transition game the team made too many mistakes that resulted into counters which left our defense unstructured and handed the other teams easy goals. Especially the gameplay by central defendse and defensive midfield did not work (from what I saw). In DM we have many options, but from my POV this is quantity over quality. I reall hope Eichin can loan some players there and free some budget for a quality players (no easy task to get one though).
Very well said about the financial situation. The accumulated results from the past several years have certainly been bleak. I can understand the frustration that people like Eichin must be facing when dealing with numerous budget shortages and restraints. The company I currently work for has been going through a considerable restructuring. Really can feel like working with your hands tied behind your back. Regarding the lack of investor found, appears it comes down to complacency and not enough initiatives taken. Top management must show greater competence. The status quo of the club has lead to this downward spiral of today.
Agree with the need for an additional stable midfielder. Right now this team needs a healthy and in form Junuzovic badly. Bargfrede has good work rate but his lack of pace is a liability when tracking back on counter attacks. He also has a tendency to over commit on going for tackles which sometimes don't work out. As much as I like and rate Grillitsch for his attacking qualities, he's been a source of causing turnovers at times. That's definitely an area where he needs to improve on. For all the slack that Opa Fritz gets, I don't necessarily think he's been the worse. He still puts in full efforts defensively, although the end product when he takes shots just haven't been there. In the long run, it's better to rest him more often and put someone else younger on. Too bad that Lukas Fröde is set to go on loan to St. Pauli. He was one youngster that I originally had high hopes for after watching him with the reserves.
Promising start to the training camp. Werder win 7-0 against Adana Demirspor with goals by: Eggestein, Ujah, Fritz, Kroos, Öztunali, Lorenzen & Bartels. Two sets of lineups were featured for each half. First: Wiedwald - Guwara, Galvez, Vestergaard, S-Garcia - Bargfrede, Fritz, Grillitsch, Eggestein - Ujah, Pizarro Second: Zetterer - Gebre Slassie, Lukimya, Hüsing, Sternberg - Kroos, U-Garcia, Öztunali, Papunashvili - Bartels, Lorenzen
New rumors emerging for a couple of players. A return of Lennart Thy in the summer is looking possible. His contract at St. Pauli is running out at seasons end, I believe Stuttgart were also looking at him as an option. Thy has made steady progress and improved his scoring rate this campaign. The other is Laszlo Kleinheisler from Videoton FC. He hasn't played first team club football for them this season, but interestingly was selected for the Hungarian NT and scored a vital goal to help them reach the Euros.