These players can leave for free in a year, which club is making the biggest mistake?

The transfer period in football is not only an opportunity to strengthen the roster, but also a chance to sell unwanted players or generate profits for some of your wards through sales. However, it doesn’t always work out and the player then goes into the last year of his contract with a view to changing his contract after the season, as a free agent. Here are a couple of such names that may well be changing jobs in a year’s time without compensation for their current club.

Konrad Laimer

A big saga played out this summer around Konrad Laimer. The Austrian midfielder with a year on his contract wanted to buy Bayern Munich. They also sent several offers for him to Leipzig, but none of them reached the amount demanded by the Red Bull management.

Laimer wanted to Munich and through the whole episode he was out of the first team, where he returned only after the end of the transfer period. With Bayern not interested in paying the asking price for the 25-year-old midfielder precisely because they can bring Laimer in for free in a year’s time, this story is expected to have a sequel.

Youri Tielemans

Another 25-year-old midfielder with a year left on his contract is Leicester’s Youri Tielemans. There was a general expectation that the Belgian midfielder would be on the move this summer. However, none of the clubs he has long been linked with have committed to anything serious and so Tielemans has remained at Leicester without much fuss.

Perhaps even given the sums of money that were flying through the media in connection with his name, the club itself may have concluded that it was more profitable for them to keep Tielemans for this season and lose him without compensation for a year than to accept reduced offers near the end of his contract. However, an extension with the player is considered unlikely.

Daichi Kamada

The mainstay of last season’s Europa League winners has remained at his club despite strong interest from Benfica. Frankfurt had already lost Filip Kostic, who himself had a year left on his contract in the summer, and Martin Hinteregger, who ended his professional playing career in light of not only his sporting success but also his controversial contacts.

Eintracht Frankfurt thus clearly did not want to lose another mainstay and kept Kamada. But they risk losing him in a year without a replacement, along with another key player, left-footed central defender Evan Ndicka.

Mousa Dembélé

Nobody has been able to capture the striker who netted 21 goals in 2,210 league minutes in Ligue 1 this summer. Moreover, Mousa Dembélé seems to have lost his position in the starting line-up with the return of Alexandre Lacazette. It would therefore make sense for both sides to go their own way.

However, that didn’t happen in the summer and Dembélé may be looking for a new deal in January or secure a contract at a new club as a free agent after the new year. It will be interesting to see what clubs show interest in the French one-time youth international, given that he wasn’t as much of a sought-after commodity in the summer as he might have expected himself.

Marcus Thuram

Another French striker who may move on in a year’s time when his contract expires is Marcus Thuram from Borussia Mönchengladbach. A club that can’t jump around too much financially at the moment will thus probably lose another valuable commodity without financial compensation after Matthias Ginter.

The situation at Gladbach is even worse as the contract of left-footed defensive all-rounder Ramy Bensebaini is also coming to an end. Both he and Thuram at ideal footballing ages, neither should be in need of a more lucrative engagement than the now financially ailing Gladbach. Moreover, their departures will only deepen the club’s woes.

Milan Škriniar

After Inter Milan turned down a 50 million offer from PSG for him in the summer, it may well be that the Slovakian stopper will leave his club after the season completely for free.

Previously linked with transfers not only to the Parisian big club, but also to Real Madrid or Tottenham in England, Škriniar, at 28 years old, which he will celebrate later this season, should have a table full of offers the moment the suitors are not forced to shell out a pretty fat cheque to Inter for him.

After five seasons at the club and a final contract extension in 2019, the Italian club will probably be hoping that the Slovakian international will accept the reportedly €6 million contract on offer until 2027.

Source: Transfermarkt