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Post by rugbytoffee on Dec 2, 2019 13:49:38 GMT
Given all the efforts RB Leipzig put into signing Ademola Lookman from Everton, it’s not unreasonable to say they should have known what they were buying and what they’d do with the player.
Everton were repeatedly slammed in the German media for holding the transfer back, and for asking for what was deemed to be an unreasonable fee.
RB Leipzig had already had the player on loan, and were determined to get him on a permanent transfer, and in the end agreed to send €18m to Goodison Park for the 22 year old.
Despite all of that, he’s only been given 131 minutes in the Bundesliga so far this season, and a further 69 minutes in the Champions League. There hasn’t been serious injury issues, and Lookman has spent much of the season glued to the bench.
Bild have taken a look at players who aren’t being considered at their clubs this season, and Lookman is the one man named for RB Leipzig. The youngster’s problem is that he’s considered ‘defensively too weak’ to fit into Julian Nagelsmann’s system.
The German club knew Nagelsmann would be their manager for more than a month before signing Lookman from Everton, so it’s a wonder they didn’t fully check this one out.
Bild say he now has to hope for a fresh start in the second half of the season.
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Post by rugbytoffee on Dec 6, 2019 16:16:25 GMT
When Ademola Lookman has felt in need of reassurance – and there have been a few such occasions over the years – he calls up two men who know him better than almost anyone.
Des and Felix coached him from the ages of 11 to 16, during an extended tooth-cutting process playing Sunday league football for Waterloo FC, and beyond that he has counted both as “mentors” for as long as he can remember. If uncertainty began to take root during those teenage years they would put him straight immediately, keeping his focus trained on the dream that had always consumed him.
“I wanted to be playing in an academy and, as time went on, I was thinking: ‘Time’s catching up, when’s it going to happen?’” he says. “Sometimes I’d be like: ‘Maybe it won’t work out for me.’ And they’d quickly go: ‘What are you talking about? God’s given you this talent for a reason, don’t ever give up on it.’
In defence of RB Leipzig “Them reminding me what I have is always refreshing. Even if there’s that second of doubt where you’re saying, ‘I’m not too sure’, they’re always like: ‘No, no, no, we didn’t start off [playing football] to doubt ourselves, we do it properly, we do it because we back ourselves no matter what the situation is.’”
It is a sentiment that comes to mind now because this is not the easiest of times. Lookman has just come inside from an hour and a half’s training with RB Leipzig and, make no mistake, he has looked the part out there. In an 11-a-side match crammed into two-thirds of a pitch and containing its fair share of hard knocks, he has scored a couple of sharp finishes and to the naked eye has responded well to Julian Nagelsmann’s constant demands for “intensität”. But on a match day, when it really matters, Lookman has had only 201 minutes all season. Leipzig, a point off the Bundesliga summit, are flying but on a personal level the move he sought for more than a year has yet to catch light.
“This time around it’s definitely different,” says Lookman, whose loan from Everton in the second half of 2017-18 brought five goals, a series of sparkling performances and a clamour for his return. “The first time it was like a leap of faith, but this time it’s more like ‘go’ time. The club has changed, the team is stronger – a lot stronger – and there’s a new coach, so it’s something I have to adapt to.”
It was, he says, a “no-brainer” to come back in July when the clubs finally agreed a fee. Last season it had been hard, initially, to get over the disappointment when Everton rejected two offers. “At the beginning it was,” he says. “But then thinking of that was hurting me. If I was thinking, ‘I wish I was there’ then I’d be like, ‘How’s that going to help my situation now?’” He knuckled down and received some reassurances from Marco Silva but a breakthrough never really came. Only three starts in the league ensued and he admits it was hard, at times, to wonder what was going wrong when those ahead of him were hardly firing on all cylinders.
That was another situation in which Des and Felix, who stopped him going “off-topic”, proved invaluable. Their advice appears to work because Lookman, for all the stop-start nature of his career to date, hardly seems low on confidence. He talks fondly and at length about Waterloo, a club set up two decades ago to provide a supportive and inclusive community for youngsters in disadvantaged parts of Lambeth and Southwark, but in the same breath as recalling the leaf-strewn, bobbly, sloped picture of his youth he is unhesitant in stating: “This is my stage now.”
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Post by rugbytoffee on Jan 8, 2020 9:44:05 GMT
Newcastle are reportedly interested in signing RB Leipzig winger Ademola Lookman on loan in January with an option to buy.
The 22-year-old has failed to shine in the Bundesliga since making the move from Everton in the summer in a deal worth £22.5m.
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Post by Avinalaff on Jan 8, 2020 12:25:22 GMT
Newcastle are reportedly interested in signing RB Leipzig winger Ademola Lookman on loan in January with an option to buy. The 22-year-old has failed to shine in the Bundesliga since making the move from Everton in the summer in a deal worth £22.5m. We've broken him.
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Post by rugbytoffee on Jan 9, 2020 12:09:14 GMT
According to a Football Insider exclusive, United have “reached an agreement” to sign the RB Leipzig winger “following a breakthrough in negotiations”.
The report claims the Magpies are confident of completing the deal in the next few days after reaching a “broad agreement” with the Bundesliga outfit
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