Carney Chukwuemeka feels key to Borussia Dortmund’s future – but can they afford to keep him?

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It is a sign of how strange Borussia Dortmund’s season has been that as they travel to Barcelona, and despite barely having played to date, Carney Chukwuemeka suddenly seems so important.

Chukwuemeka arrived on loan from Chelsea in the winter transfer window but, owing to illness and injury, the 21-year-old midfielder has only been fit enough to play 135 Bundesliga minutes in the period since. He started his first game for the club on Saturday, playing 70 minutes of the 4-1 away win over Freiburg, and had a profound impact.

In possession, he was cutting and purposeful with his passes, and typically bold with the ball at his feet. But he was rugged in the tackle, too, and physically commanding. Chukwuemeka created a flurry of first-half chances, scored with a deflected shot from the edge of the box in the second, then set Julian Brandt free to create Dortmund’s third goal for Serhou Guirassy.

It was deeply impressive. At the end of the weekend, Chukwuemeka earned his first nomination to Kicker’s coveted Elf des Tages, their team of the weekend. Given that he has had so little chance to develop chemistry with his team-mates and that eighth-placed Dortmund are hardly enjoying a vintage season, that is quite the accolade.

And this is a strange situation.

Chukwuemeka scores his first goal for Dortmund against Freiburg (Alex Grimm/Getty Images)

Chukwuemeka has been a virtual bystander since he arrived. But he has also played in short, rich doses that have shown his talent and pointed to a future direction for Dortmund. It helps that he so clearly fits the house style — that he is such a Dortmund player.

The Westfalenstadion crowd wants to be moved by the football it sees on the pitch below and Chukwuemeka, as a blend of slashing technique, craft and ambition on the ball, suits that mood, conforming to all the local ideals while also helping the side to be much progressive — not to get stuck in second or third gear, but to play football at a pace that makes the terraces quiver.

Tactically, as Saturday showed, many Dortmund players can profit from having Chukwuemeka in their midfield.

Karim Adeyemi and Maximilian Beier both had first-half chances arising directly from the loanee’s ability to find gaps in Freiburg’s defensive and midfield lines. Brandt, who has suffered through an extremely difficult season, often appearing bereft of confidence, gave one of his best performances in recent months.

Brandt showed improvement a week ago, in the 3-1 win over Mainz, but he seemed liberated by having Chukwuemeka alongside him and not compelled, as is so often his way and his weakness, to overplay.

There is some overlap between their respective abilities and so taking some of the creative responsibility away from Brandt, particularly in deeper positions, splits the defensive attention he faces and focuses him more precisely. It was notable how often he received passes in space at Europa-Park Stadion and how he was regularly running towards Freiburg’s back four.

Chukwuemeka has brought the best out of his Dortmund team-mates (Alex Grimm/Getty Images)

Recently, Niko Kovac has moved away from the 4-2-3-1 he initially used upon taking charge, employing a 3-5-2 instead. Felix Nmecha has now recovered from the knee injury he suffered in January and is set to return to the No 6 role he was playing with such distinction in the late autumn. A central three of Nmecha, Chukwuemeka and Brandt certainly seems balanced and capable of extracting the best from each of those players.

But perhaps nothing seems as valuable as Chukwuemeka’s personality.

Prior to Freiburg, one of the characteristics of his impact across those cameo performances — particularly in the 20 minutes against Union Berlin and, a few weeks later, RB Leipzig — was his capacity to come on, demand the ball and simply play. It often felt like a tonic.

That may sound like a vague virtue, but Dortmund have received a lot of criticism this season — rightly — and that has bred neuroses throughout their team. Kovac is dealing with fearful, inhibited players, some of whom seem preoccupied with not making mistakes.

Whether because of his age, his personality or simply because he has not been at the club long enough, Chukwuemeka has not been infected by that willingness to hide in plain sight. After the Freiburg game, he told reporters with a shrug that he “hadn’t really thought about his performance in the first half” and that he had just played by feel.

Also speaking in Breisgau, Adeyemi described his new team-mate as a “chilled out guy, a street footballer”, with Pascal Gross also praising Chukwuemeka as “a superb footballer” who “plays with great confidence”. Sebastian Kehl, Dortmund’s sporting director, admitted that while “Carney is still not at 100 per cent, he is always capable of making a difference”.

Chukwuemeka tussles with Union Berlin’s Tim Skarke in February (Ina Fassbender/AFP via Getty Images)

Within this context, it’s easy to see Chukwuemeka less as a midfielder and more a heavy dose of vitamin B. Someone capable of jolting Dortmund to life with changes of rhythm, but also being more generally restorative and beneficial to the squad’s mood. Having a player to whom the game comes so easily rarely hurts. Especially not at Dortmund, where it has often looked so, so hard this season.

Still: 135 minutes. These are big conclusions to draw from so little playing time.

Furthermore, unless Dortmund requalify for the Champions League next season, it is difficult to imagine how they might afford the fee of around €50million (£42.9m; $54.7m) that would make Chukwuemeka’s loan permanent. At the moment, he is due to return to Chelsea even before the FIFA Club World Cup starts in June.

Rather like the situation with Jadon Sancho and Ian Maatsen last season, who were so good on loan in the second half of the season but ultimately out of financial reach, it’s perfectly possible that Borussia Dortmund and Chukwuemeka will both be starting again in the summer.

They work together and they seem to need each other. Whether they can stay together is another matter entirely.

(Top photo: Sebastian El-Saqqa – firo sportphoto/Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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