Here’s the thing regarding Julian Brandt. Since arriving at BVB he’s slowly gone from a starter, to a sub & then transitioned to a reserve but the reason isn’t because he’s rubbish or whatever hipsters are spouting these days, it’s simply the system used (1/6).

Depending on the system, Brandt would play the RAM alongside Reus or as the sole AM instead of him, he’d also play the wings, but steadily he began to have competition from the likes of Bellingham, Hazard, Sancho, Reyna etc and that’s as well as Marco Reus (2/6).

There had been so much competition uptop that Brandt was even deployed as a CF a few times. Now, whenever Favre or Terzić played with the 343 system, he had both his midfielders in defensive stance, those being Axel Witsel & yep, Julian Brandt (3/6).

Brandt isn’t a defensive minded Midfielder, but he’s still been played there on a number of occasions and done previously really well to be fair. However even there, in C(D)M, Brandt faces competition from the likes of Can, Raschl, Bellingham, Delaney & Dahoud (4/6).

So, despite Axel Witsel now suffering from rupturing his Achilles’ tendon, how it affects Brandt leaving the club is beyond me when he’s primarily an attack minded Midfielder with competition that’s been pushing him back on all fronts over the past 2 seasons (5/6).

Julian Brandt is an exceptional player, he’s still only 24 & as a team player who’s an intelligent tackler, with an eye for a needle pass & great dribbling runs he’s definitely what we’re missing currently. Anyone who doesn’t want him is crazy IMO (6/6).