According to reports from Kicker via the Sky Sports Transfer Centre (see 12.01pm), Borussia Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke has insisted the club will fight ‘tooth and nail’ to keep their star players.
Having performed far beyond their financial means since Jurgen Klopp kick-started the revival of Westphalen football with back-to-back Bundesliga titles in 2011 and 2012, Dortmund’s key personnel are common fodder in the tabloids’ transfer rumour columns.
Indeed, the likes of Mats Hummels, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Ilkay Gundogan and Marco Reus were all heavily linked with moves away during the summer, after the Black-Yellows failed to qualify for the Champions League, whilst striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has been the latest subject of intense speculation.
A strike against Hamburg last Friday night has brought the Gabon international’s campaign total to 23 goals in just 21 appearances, including 15 nets in the Bundesliga to make him the leading goal scorer across Europe’s five major top flights.
That scintillating form has seen the 26-year-old linked with Premier League trio Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool in recent weeks, amid reports that Dortmund’s valuation of the in-form striker stands at an expensive but affordable £42million.
But Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke has issued a clear hands-off warning to potential suitors of the club’s flagship talents, telling German publication Kicker; “We will fight tooth and nail for every single star player of our club and we are definitely able to compete financially. Some players of our club were out to leave us, however in the end all of them stayed at our club! We have very much to offer as a club and we have our eyes fully on the progress of our players’ careers. These days we are able to offer double what we were able to offer in wages back in 2011 when we won Bundesliga.”
Watzke’s first port of call will be to renew the contracts of Hummels, Mkhitaryan and Gundogan. They all expire at the end of next season.