2009-10 Transfer Report Card: How Good Were Bayern Munich’s Signings?
With the season nearing its end, Goal.com’s Clark Whitney assesses how die Roten’s new signings fared in their first season, and whether the club got it right or wrong in the transfer market…
By Clark Whitney
Mar 23, 2010 11:00:00 AM
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Photo GalleryZoomMario Gomez, Bayern München, foto: Proshots
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Players
Ivica Olic
Anatoliy Tymoshchuk
Mario Gomez
Alexander Baumjohann
Danijel Pranjic
Arjen Robben
Edson Braafheid
Last April saw the end of the “Klinsmann experiment” at Bayern, as former superstar Juergen Klinsmann was sacked. By mid-summer, the former Germany striker’s signings (Tim Borowski, Massimo Oddo and Landon Donovan) were offloaded, and manager Uli Hoeness tried to put together a team capable of winning the Champions League.
IN: Braafheid (Twente), Robben (Real Madrid), Olic (Hamburg), Baumjohann (Borussia M’gladbach), Pranjic (Heerenveen), Gomez (Stuttgart), Tymoshchuk (Zenit St. Petersburg)
OUT: Lucio (Inter Milan), Podolski (Koeln), Ze Roberto (Hamburg), Donovan (loan return), Oddo (Milan, loan return), Borowski (Werder Bremen), Hummels (Dortmund), Sosa (Estudiantes, loan), Breno (Nuernberg, loan), Ottl (Nuernberg, loan), Braafheid (Celtic, loan)
Arjen Robben: A
Make no mistake: without Robben, Bayern would be out of the Champions League, and either second or third in the Bundesliga. His signing was a risky, knee-jerk reaction following Bayern’s poor performance in August, but has proven to be well worth the €25m transfer fee. Supremely gifted both as a technical footballer and as an athlete, Robben is one of the few individuals in world football who can turn around a game all on his own. He has done so numerous times in recent weeks, and is arguably in the form of his life. The flying Dutchman only misses out on an A+ because he missed time in the fall campaign with injury. If he manages to stay fit, Robben could be named German Footballer of the Year.
Ivica Olic: B+
A fan favourite since his arrival at the Allianz Arena, Olic has scored nine goals to date, but his role in the team is currently up for question. Despite his breakneck pace and superhuman work rate, Olic lacks the technical qualities of many of his team-mates, a deficiency that has seen him slip from a first-team regular to Van Gaal’s fourth choice striker behind Gomez, Klose and Thomas Mueller. Given his great attitude and the fact that he came to Munich on a free transfer, Olic remains a good signing. He does not seem to mind coming off the bench, always gives 110 per cent, and offers the kind of gritty quality required to beat teams like Koeln, Freiburg and Nuernberg. Just don’t expect him to score against the likes of Inter or Manchester United.
Mario Gomez: B
Many of you are probably wondering why a D isn’t next to his name, but to be fair, Gomez managed a team-high 14 goals in all competitions before his recent injury. Contrary to popular belief, Bayern needed to sign a quality striker last summer: Miro Klose and Luca Toni were well past their respective peaks, and despite his impressive work rate, Ivica Olic was never going to be a 25-goal-a-year striker. All things considered, Gomez may have been the best striker transfer Bayern could have made in the summer. Let’s consider the other high-profile striker transfers in Europe, namely Karim Benzema, Samuel Eto’o, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Only the latter has managed more goals than Gomez, and just barely (15 to 14). Sure, Gomez was overpriced (estimates of his price range from €30-34m), but I’d prefer him over the flops that characterised the Klinsmann era.
HUMILIATING
Danijel Pranjic: C-
Because he paid an estimated €700k of his own transfer fee from Heerenveen, you have to have sympathy for the Croatia international, who has no place in the Bayern starting XI. After a spell playing in the left back position, Pranjic was found to be lacking defensively, and 20-year old Holger Badstuber displaced him once Martin Demichelis returned from injury. When Arjen Robben was injured, Pranjic had a better spell on the left side of midfield, but it was later found that Thomas Mueller was more effective in that role with Olic added to the line-up as a striker. Now, even 17-year old David Alaba and 19-year old Diego Contento are preferred over Pranjic as starting left backs. Pranjic earns a C- because he has at least managed to secure a back-up defensive midfield role ahead of Anatoliy Tymoshchuk.
Edson Braafheid: E
All the talk of bringing in Jose Bosingwa or Darijo Srna to solve Bayern’s full-back dilemma was scrapped last summer when Edson Braafheid joined Bayern from Twente for €2.5m. While coach Louis van Gaal had faith in the left back’s potential, concerns over his unwillingness to move forward, lack of pace, and questionable right foot forced Van Gaal to remove the Dutch defender from his starting XI. As the fall campaign wore on, fans began to protest Braafheid’s association with the club, some considering him Bayern’s worst defender since Christian Lell. In January, Braafheid was loaned to Celtic, with fans’ pressure the cited reason for the transfer.
Anatoliy Tymoshchuk: E
Signed to replace Ze Roberto in central midfield, Tymoshchuk’s role was eliminated when Bastian Schweinsteiger moved to central midfield. With skipper Mark van Bommel his main competition, the Ukrainian midfield anchor has had to settle for a substitute’s role. The €15m signing of Tymoshchuk in February 2009 was the direct result of Bayern’s Klinsmann-era identity crisis, but Uli Hoeness should have known better than to start building his team when a summer coaching change was likely. A much more appropriate—and financially responsible—option would have been to offer Ze Roberto a two-year contract extension.
Alexander Baumjohann: E
Call him Jan Schlaudraff, round 2. Last spring, Bayern needed a creative attacker, and secured Baumjohann on a free transfer. The 23-year old was a cheap buy, but was quickly found to be surplus to requirements after the signing of Robben. Unlike Schlaudraff before him, Baumjohann got lucky when he was sent to Schalke on loan in January. He still has yet to secure a starting role in Felix Magath’s side, but has a much better chance of doing so in Gelsenkirchen than he did in Bavaria. He can’t be blamed for trying to make it in Munich, but like Pranjic, he really has no place in the Bayern starting XI. While Baumjohann himself earns an E, the Bayern management share the blame for wasting his time.
FINAL GRADE: C
There are many elements to consider, some obviously positive and others distinctly negative. To begin with, Robben’s transfer was a risk, but one that has paid tremendous dividends. For €25m, Bayern have signed the Bundesliga’s best player, and arguably one of the top 10 in world football. In addition to his on-field contributions, Robben will attract more stars to Bayern and the Bundesliga, and his presence just might help extend Franck Ribery’s stay in Munich.
Moving on to less clear-cut positives, the Gomez transfer was by no means a bargain, but addressed real needs in the squad. It was a good idea to sign a striker of his quality, but the price might have been a bit too high. Olic also added depth on the cheap, and cannot be underestimated.
However, the transfers of Pranjic and Baumjohann were completely unnecessary at the time of their signings, and moves for Tymoshchuk and Braafheid have been found useless with the rise of youngsters Badstuber and Mueller, and the move of Schweinsteiger to central midfield. While the Braafheid and Baumjohann transfers can hardly be criticised due to price, the signing of Tymoshchuk was a dreadful piece of business, and either Eljero Elia or Michel Bastos would have been better signings than Pranjic.
Where Bayern really lose credit is in the transfers of Ze Roberto, Lucio and Mats Hummels. Despite his age, Ze Roberto would have been a useful and versatile substitute for at least this year, and offering a two-year contract extension would have been much more financially viable than paying Tymoshchuk’s transfer fee.
Lucio remains captain of Brazil and is one of the main reasons Inter have advanced to the Champions League quarter-finals: if there was a central defender to offload, it should have been Martin Demichelis or Daniel van Buyten.
A product of the Bayern youth academy, Hummels was also a defender worth keeping. His consistent play alongside Neven Subotic has turned Dortmund’s back line into one of the league’s more formidable defences.
In conclusion, there is no doubt that this year’s Bayern is much better than the last, but only thanks to some amount of luck. The emergence of Mueller and Badstuber, as well as the resurgence of Schweinsteiger, Van Buyten and Hans-Joerg Butt have saved Uli Hoeness from criticism for failing to solve the greatest problems that plagued Bayern at the end of last season: the positions of full-back and goalkeeper.
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