Of all the players to be in one of the most dramatic and long running sagas of the transfer window, few would have expected it to have been Jonathan Tah. The Bayer Leverkusen defender has been at the club for an incredible nine years, despite the many, many bumps along the road, and has now assumed a leadership position at the Bundesliga champions. Nevertheless, the rumors that Bayern Munich are in for him and that Tah really wants to move as well do not stop.
But that standing at Leverkusen may explain why the club are so eager to re-integrate him into the side despite the strong interest in the Bavarians. Florian Plettenberg captured a quote from Leverkusen trainer Xabi Alonso that details the reintegration process: “Of course, in the first few weeks, there was a situation we didn’t want, but it can happen in football. That’s why I decided not to let him start [against VFB Stuttgart]. But this week, he trained well again, fully focused, his mind was here. At the moment, there is no other news, so he remains in my plan, as an important player and leader.”
How long he remains in Alonso’s plan will of course depend on Leverkusen’s belief in their internal deadline for the deal and Bayern’s willingness to push to complete a deal. But if no deal materializes in the upcoming days, this will all have been another very familiar bump in the road of the Tah and Leverkusen relationship, one that would be odds on to last an entire decade. Somehow, the two parties seem destined to remain stuck together.
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