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Top 5 rising Bundesliga stars who could be on the move soon
Raphael Honigstein |

January 11, 2019

BUNDESLIGA clubs are famously reluctant to sell in January  – they don’t want to lose key players at a time when securing new talent is much more difficult  – but there are nevertheless enough interesting players worthy of a punt. Here’s our top five of players to make a move for this January. 
 

Timo Werner 
 

RB Leipzig have ruled out any chance of letting their main striker go this winter. That is not to say that a deal cannot be done now for the beginning of the 2019/20 season, as Chelsea did with Christian Pulisic. Interested clubs such as FC Bayern and Liverpool could be better off making their move now before the real scramble starts at the end of the season. Leipzig will not let the player run down his contract (set to expire in 2020) which makes selling him between now and August a necessity. 

22-year-old Werner, a pacy, wiry “on the shoulder” striker in the Michael Owen mould, has recently established himself as a regular in Joachim Löw’s revamped Germany. Fourteen goals in 25 appearances in all competitions for a side that mostly play on the break illustrate the steady progress he has made. 

Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke recently hinted that Werner had already made up his mind about his next club – and it’s not Dortmund. But until Leipzig agree a price similar to the €67m Dortmund got for Pulisic, the young forward remains in play. You’ll need to be quick though. 
 

Jeremy Toljan 
 

Toljan, a technical and quick right-back, made his name at the TSG Hoffenheim team that qualified for European football for the first time under Julian Nagelsmann in 2016-2017. He was also one of the stars of Germany’s triumphant U21 team at Euro 2017, keeping the likes of Dani Ceballos and Marco Asensio at bay in the final, which makes his subsequent loss of form at Borussia Dortmund all the more puzzling. 

After his move to the Signal Iduna Park in August 2017, Toljan struggled to play anywhere near his level. First, Peter Bosz’s high-risk pressing game drained his confidence, then an injury robbed him of more game-time when Peter Stöger took over. Lucien Favre, the man on the bench this season, has not even played him once so far.

But he did make it to BVB’s training camp in Marbella, and played for 45 minutes in their friendly against Fortuna Düsseldorf. There is still a player in there, and he might well prove a bargain. Dortmund will take a low single digit figure for the 24-year-old, who can also play on the left side of defence. 
 

Florian Neuhaus 
 

The former TSV 1860 alumnus, 21, has been a revelation in his first half-season for Borussia Mönchengladbach in the Bundesliga. A tidy central midfielder, Neuhaus has contributed greatly to the Foals' best start to a campaign in over forty years. He keeps the ball well, screens the defence well, changes tempo and direction of play like a senior pro with plenty of strategic experience and, most importantly, plays a killer ball or two. Eight assists and one goal in seventeen games is a tremendous return for a player this young. 

Gladbach would be silly to let him go after such a short space of time in the first team – he had been playing for Fortuna Düsseldorf in the second division in the two previous seasons – and a contract dated until 2022 makes his departure very unlikely. But expect the buzz to get louder in coming weeks. This guy will be on the radar of many clubs in no time. 
 

Sebastian Haller 
 

Eintracht Frankfurt have made plenty of headlines with their fine attacking game this season. Most of the plaudits have gone to 21-year-old Serbian forward Luka Jovic and Croatia’s World Cup finalist Ante Rebic, 25, but there’s an increasing appreciation of the more orthodox centre-forward talents of the third part of the Eagles’ terrific trio, Frenchman Sebastian Haller.

A tall and muscular number nine with a great work ethic, 24-year-old Haller has netted nine times in the league (with nine assists) and three times in the Europa League (with three assists). You won’t find many more reliable number nines in the Bundesliga; Kicker magazine has even rated his performances more highly than Robert Lewandowski in the first half of the season. 

Bought for €7m from Utrecht 18 months ago, Haller is easily worth five times as much now. Frankfurt, on course for their first-ever Champions League qualification won’t entertain any offers to this winter in light of a contract that still runs until 2022 but teams with a need for a classic goal-scorer would be well advised to start following his fortunes right now. 
 

Nico Schulz
 

The 25-year-old has been threatening to make his breakthrough in the Bundesliga, first at Hertha, then at Borussia Mönchengladbach, for a number of years. This season, it’s finally happened. In Julian Nagelsmann’s fluid TSG Hoffenheim team, Schulz has often played as a wing-back or winger but it’s at full-back, a problem position for many clubs, where he truly excels. 

Germany have struggled for years to find a suitable left-back but the Berlin-born player could well be the answer to Joachim Löw’s prayers. Expect big offers coming in for him in the summer at the very latest. 

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