Dortmund Investing Significantly

Clark Whitney ‏@Mr_Bundesliga
Watzke, on Lewandowski: "We would rather take no transfer fee in 2014 than to sell him for too little." Source: Sport1 Doppelpass
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25 mins Clark Whitney ‏@Mr_Bundesliga
Watzke says Dortmund will "invest significantly" in transfers. No positions specified, but he mentioned improvements to depth & 1st XI

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Assuming their budget is close to 25 million euros plus sales, how would you invest it? Who'd be their realistic targets ?

starting CF
back up RB
back up LB
back up CB
rotational CM ?

Those are the main positions.

The dream CF for them would be Dzeko, who probably won't move this summer, but next. Bendtner can work in the right system (national team) and will be available for next to nothing. Maybe Klopp can get him to work? similar to Lewa

Need a back up CB, because they look vulnerable when Hummels is out. Bender is injury-prone, Sahin is a gamble, and Kehl is pretty old....so another CM would be handy

back up for both fullbacks would be a bonus too

Their current team is all round pretty good imo. Good GK, good defense, mid and attack etc.

Depth wise, I'm sure Sahin will be good enough, plus they have Leitner who I think can play CM.

In terms of backup fullback/s, they can use youth players or buy someone from Bundesliga, similar to how Bayern got Dante.

If Lewandowski leaves, then I'm sure they can go for Dzeko this year, if not Dzeko then another striker. Or they can put Reus/Gotze up front and get a winger/AM.

Well, I watched today's Doppelpass talk, too. Very interesting on a whole, that. Watzke danced quite a bit around which positions he exactly wants to strengthen (he was quizzed quite a bit about it, but always evaded), but from between the lines he just thinks they have enough midfielders.

Moreover, he was pretty adamant that he wants to keep Robert Lewandowski until 2014 and he'd rather forfeit any money he could make of him this summer as he'd gain more from another CL run (around 40 mio Euros according to him) than by selling Lewa (around 25 mio Euros).

Oh, and he explicitly said they wouldn't go for any strikers with big names from big clubs ("like ManCity") as that wouldn't fit with Dortmund's philosophy, so Dzeko is pretty much out.

Well, they'll be looking at ~50m from the new BuLi TV deal, IIRC, 40m+ from the UCL, a bit from sales, and they also are set to record 20ish million euros net profit, of course they won't reinvest all of it into players, they'll put a huge chunk into paying off debt, because while they're making net profits, they do still have debt.

But they will comfortably be able to spend 50m if they want to. Unless I've overlooked some huge money sink hole they got somewhere.

And I love that they're unwilling to sell, even if I'm no Lewandowski fan. But not being a selling club rocks.

VivaStPauli wrote:Well, they'll be looking at ~50m from the new BuLi TV deal, IIRC, 40m+ from the UCL, a bit from sales, and they also are set to record 20ish million euros net profit, of course they won't reinvest all of it into players, they'll put a huge chunk into paying off debt, because while they're making net profits, they do still have debt.

But they will comfortably be able to spend 50m if they want to. Unless I've overlooked some huge money sink hole they got somewhere.

And I love that they're unwilling to sell, even if I'm no Lewandowski fan. But not being a selling club rocks.

Too soon.

VivaStPauli wrote:Well, they'll be looking at ~50m from the new BuLi TV deal, IIRC, 40m+ from the UCL, a bit from sales, and they also are set to record 20ish million euros net profit, of course they won't reinvest all of it into players, they'll put a huge chunk into paying off debt, because while they're making net profits, they do still have debt.

But they will comfortably be able to spend 50m if they want to. Unless I've overlooked some huge money sink hole they got somewhere.

And I love that they're unwilling to sell, even if I'm no Lewandowski fan. But not being a selling club rocks.

so true

It was pretty obvious they would as they can't compete with Bayern otherwise.

As for positions i'd say a striker, Hummels cover( I'm talking about a CB who can actually replace him playmaking wise to a decent standard), fullback cover and maybe a long term replacement for Kehl.

I'd get at least one CF, possibly two, a fullback, preferrably a RB, another CB, Santana is decent, but god forbid both Hummels and Subotic ever get injured - and a proper DM as a backup to Kehl.

Other than that they're golden. If they really want to splurge they can also get one more winger, though Leitner can play there.

IMHO they need to replace Lewa in the long term ,and get a good backup for him (better than Schieber) now, they need a Kehl/Bender-backup, another CB-backup, a Pisczeck backup (Großkreutz can stand in for Schmelzer if need be), and a Kuba-backup.

That's about it. Since they got a Gündogan-backup in either of Sahin and Leitner, with Kehl also having a decent grasp on the role, they would be pretty much perfectly covered on all positions with about 4 signings, so they could feasibly spend more than 10m on each.

Diouf, Dzeko, Jung, Baumgartlinger, Ginter

impossible, but that'd be something..

That would be nice indeed, though Jung (and maybe Rode) might be doable, they'd both probably prefer to leave Eintracht for somewhere they'd start.

Dzeko would be doable, but Watzke pretty clearly implyed they won't be moving for any big name signings, though sporting directors are notorious liars until a deal is done and dusted...

Dzeko would be really great

One player i know they're after is Kevin Gameiro of PSG who is leaving this summer.

Well, Osvaldo would work great for them : ).

Well, Dortmund for sure have learned from the Amoroso disaster, so I doubt they will go for overpriced players with overpriced wages.