RB Leipzig's need a lot more than new players to fix this summer's disastrous transfer window

Following the departure of many key players, new director of sport Max Eberl will have to change the club's culture and transfer policy if he hopes to avoid the same mistakes his predecessor made.

A penny for Max Eberl’s thoughts. Just seven months ago the 49-year old was unveiled as RB Leipzig’s director of sport, following an impressive 14-year stint as Borussia Mönchengladbach’s sporting director which had a number of notable highs but undoubtedly finished on a low. The Saxony club was supposed to offer Eberl professionalism instead of chaos, ambition instead of frustration. That all went out the window last week.

The sudden and rather unexpected departure of Dominik Szoboszlai to Liverpool for €70 million looks like a fantastic piece of business on paper. Leipzig signed the Hungarian forward from RB Salzburg in 2021 for €22m (admittedly far less than other clubs would have likely paid) and to make such a notable profit on a player in just two years points to the excellent coaching and development Leipzig have become famous for. The only problem is that it wasn’t planned.

Six weeks ago Eberl sat down with sports magazine Kicker for an interview and when asked about the concern fans of the club had about the German Cup winning squad being systematically dismantled in the summer, the Leipzig boss was adamant: "Nothing is falling apart here.” Sure, Konrad Laimer had agreed a deal with Bayern Munich last summer and Christopher Nkunku had long since agreed to move to Chelsea but Marco Rose would have the vast majority of last season’s squad to build upon. Then along came Liverpool and now it seems certain that Josko Gvardiol will follow his team mates out the door as soon as Manchester City cough up a record transfer fee for the defender.