5 clubs who did recruit well this season
In a season which has seen both Feyenoord and Monaco win their first top flight titles this century and Leipzig earn Champions League football, unpredictability has played centre stage. Whilst some clubs have crumbled under expectation, others have risen to the occasion and the success of a football club can almost always be traced back to its start-of-season wheelings-and-dealings.
Whether operating on a shoestring budget or blessed with millions-upon-millions to spend, there are some clubs which are just simply better at spending their money and spotting top talent season after season.
Now in the typical post-season analytical phase, it’s the perfect time to assess the transfers made by clubs across the continent back in August and rank the five clubs who recruited best this term…
#5 Borussia Dortmund: A-
Despite securing third spot and guaranteed Champions League football on the final day of the season, it’s fair to say ‘Die Schwarzgelben’ have had better campaigns in recent years. Tuchel’s men were heavily reliant on Bundesliga top scorer Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang who finished with 31 league goals, but there were a handful of new faces who put in solid shifts in their debut campaigns.
Most impressive of the new bunch was 20-year-old Ousmane Dembele, signed from Stade Rennais last summer, created more chances this season (63) than any other Dortmund player going forward. The Frenchman scored six league goals and doubled that figure in terms of assists in the league and has proven he’s got the potential to be a big-name player for the club in the near future.
At the other end of the pitch, but having found the net on as many occasions as Dembele, Raphael Guerreiro, formerly of Lorient, has too hit the ground running in his first season at the Signal Iduna Park. The Portuguese has proven to be explosive, attacking full-back this term and may have finally plugged a hole Dortmund have been desperate to fill at left-back.
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