Borussia Dortmund loanees: The final verdict on Andre Schürrle

This will be the first article of “Final Verdict”, the focus of this is to analyze how our loanees fared this season and if they should stay. This article will talk about André Schürrle and his journey in the Premier League and whether he has a future at Borussia Dortmund.

Move to Borussia Dortmund

André Schürrle’s Borussia Dortmund career kicked off with enormous expectations in the summer of the 16/17 season. This was Thomas Tuchel’s second season in charge and was fresh off a season in which Dortmund had just finished second in the Bundesliga by a margin of 10 points and were preparing to rebuild for the 2016/17 campaign after selling the past season’s top assist maker, Henrikh Mkhitaryan to Manchester United. That summer Dortmund spent €121 million with our marquee transfer being Schürrle’s €30 million move from Wolfsburg. Schürrle was clearly the best player of that Wolfsburg squad that finished eighth in the league table, missing out on European competition but also won the DFB Pokal. He scored 12 goals and also recorded 7 assists.

Thomas Tuchel trusted Schürrle right away and placed him in Mkhitaryan’s role in the season opener against Mainz. Schürrle delivered by passing up 2 assists to Pierre Emerick Aubameyang. It seemed as if Dortmund were going to forget about Mkhitaryan. Unluckily Schürrle got injured in training prior to the second matchday in what would become a recurring theme that season. That injury paved the way for Christian Pulisic to jump into the spotlight. Pairing up with Ousmane Dembele on the left flank, Schürrle once healthy started to come off the bench. The rest of the season would see Schürrle making 15 Bundesliga appearances with 7 of them coming off the bench to replace Pulisic or Dembele. After his debut, he only managed to score twice and record one more assist.

Next season after the departure of Thomas Tuchel, Schürrle continued to play a backup role under new coach Peter Bosz. Schürrle only made it back to the starting lineup after Aubameyang was dealt to Arsenal for €60 million. He came back as a striker under Peter Stoger following the sacking of Peter Bosz because of lack of depth at that position. He would finish the season with 18 appearances but only managed to score once coming along with 6 assists and one goal.

Why was he shipped out?

At the start of the 2018/19 season, Dortmund hired new coach Lucian Favre. At the time the only options for the striker’s role in the roster were Alexsander Isak and Maximilian Phillipp. Favre made a bold move and decided that he was expandable in the current roster and opted to loan him out. Later during the summer, he brought in Barcelona striker Paco Alcacer in the same type of loan deal with an option to buy, making him our main striker this past season. Schürrle’s inconsistency and the idea of him being injured most of the time were red flags that sent him away.