Flying Kiwis – Sarpreet Singh’s Going Back Out On Loan
As disappointing as it was from an OlyWhites perspective that Sarpreet Singh opted out of Olympic consideration, being as there really isn’t another player in that group who can do what he does, it’s pretty hard to disagree with his decision. He’s coming into a pivotal season for his career. After a stuttering time of it out on loan last term it’s not only about one day cracking the Bayern first team any more, that’s still the aim but at this point even his backup options are under threat if he can’t string together a quality season full of highlights.
See, Sarpreet Singh joined Bayern Munich II on a three year deal back in 2019. That means he’s now entering the final year of that initial contract as a man without a home: not yet good enough for the firsts but far too good for the reserves. It’s a chasmic gap between those two at a club like Bayern Munich and that conundrum got further complicated when the Bayern reserves were relegated last season. The whims of fate not doing him any favours at all there, if the third tier was too low for him then the fourth tier absolutely was not gonna bridge that chasm.
He was basically left with no choice but to go out on loan again... whilst knowing that he can’t afford a repeat of how that went for him at FC Nürnburg. He needs to be playing regularly. No cutting corners. Given that the Bundesliga II season begins two days after the OlyWhites’ first game... well, he can’t be in two places at once, right? Gotta pick one and as cool as an Olympic campaign might be, missing the first month of the season at his loan club would leave him on the outside looking in at a time when that’s simply not an option for his optimal career prospects.
Which is why this has happened...
A season-long loan to SSV Jahn Regensburg in the German second tier. A club that has been in the 2.Bundesliga since 2017–18 trying to stabilise things after a decade of bouncing up and down and down and up before that. Last season they finished 14th in the league – five points clear of the relegation playoff, though it was more comfortable than that sounds because they only won one of their last ten games after effectively getting clear in mid-April... they did a Burnley in other words.
It’s a squad of mostly domestic players and one which tends to be added to via loans and free transfers, so there’s nothing out of the ordinary about Singh popping up. Coincidentally, their top scorer is a Danish dude called Andreas Albers who used to play with Nikko Boxall at Viborg. And they’re managed by Bosnian gaffer Mersad Selimbegović who played several years as a defender for the club and then worked his way up as reserve team assistant, coach of the U19s, assistant for the first team, and then finally first team manager – a role he’s held since 2019. Under Selimbegović they appear to be a team that will change up their shape from game to game, splitting between a 4-4-2 and a 4-2-3-1 last season with a little 4-2-2-2 mixed in. Singh is obviously at his best as a central attacking midfielder so the latter two options are way better for him. Gotta earn that gig though. SSV Jahn also seem to be a team which rotates its players fairly often, especially in those attacking areas. So there should at least be opportunities for Singh to start with.
Here are the respective pull quotes from each side of the transfer...
Christian Keller, SSV Jahn football director: “Sarpreet is characterized in particular by above-average technique, high quality decision-making in his actions, and the threat of goals. We now want to work with Sarpreet to ensure that he can show all these skills at the second division level. The conditions at SSV Jahn should provide the right framework for this.”
Jochen Sauer, FC Bayern Campus director: “Sarpreet already familiarised himself with the demands of the second tier at Nürnberg last season, where he made his first appearances at a higher level. The plan now is for him to continue his development at this level in Regensburg in order to take the next step in his career.”
(There’s a longer version of that chat here on the SSV Jahn website)
Singh’s first season at Bayern was a bit of a dream. He went straight into their touring preseason squad and actually got minutes alongside some of the top players on the planet. Then he hung around with those guys into the actual season, sitting on the bench for the Super Cup and the Bundesliga opener until the transfer deadline day offered some reinforcements for Niko Kovač’s team. Singh then bounced back to the reserve team that he’d initially signed for and began showing what he could do... until Kovač was fired in November and Hansi Flick took over. With Flick in charge, Singh found himself training regularly with that top team and soon got another mini run of unused sub games alongside a massive milestone: his first team debut. An 82nd minute substitute in a 6-1 win over Werder Bremen on 14 December 2019.
Meanwhile he was dominating for the reserves, scoring seven goals and setting up seven assists in 22 appearances as they won the 3. Liga at the first attempt after being promoted. And he was rewarded for those performances with his second appearance and first start for the senior team playing 64 minutes on the left wing against SC Freiburg (a 3-1 win) for a heavily rotated Bayern team in their second to last Bundesliga game – rotated because they were still competing on multiple fronts on the way to a treble. Singh also made the wider Champions League squad although never featured on a matchday. Still, he got himself two league medals in the same season for the same club. Incredible yarns.
That was his first season, his second season saw him primed to make that next step with a loan out to FC Nürnburg... but it didn’t quite work out as planned. Singh found himself at a club which struggled mightily winning only one of their first seven games. Jahn Regensburg might be happy staying steady in the second tier but way back in the day FC Nürnburg used to be one of the top clubs in the country and they wanted promotion. FCN managed to find a bit of form after that poor start as they went back to basics but that approach did not lead to an abundance of necessity for their on-loan kiwi creator. Singh played 11 times, only five starts, for 455 minutes in league play for FCN. Things seemed less than ideal when he took a break to return to Aotearoa prior to the winter break. Then in late-January the loan was cut short.
“Sporting reasons” were what the reports said. FCN was no longer a helpful place for Singh’s development, in fact it was severely hindering him, hence he went back to Bayern to play out the second half of the season with the reserve team instead. A reserve team whose success the year before had become a double-edged sword with a number of players moving away from the club to progress their careers, either on loan like Singh or permanently, and the situation that Singh returned to was one of battling relegation rather than title-challenging. Singh wasn’t able to save them... but he did settle pretty quickly back into his old ways. In 16 games (1123 minutes) he scored three goals and should probably have had a few more. Which brings us up to the current day.
Without a doubt Jahn Regensburg will be a better fit than Nürnburg was for Sarpreet Singh. A humbler club who have never played in the Bundesliga, who will be more welcoming of temporary players and more patient in terms of getting them going. In hindsight... it probably was not the smartest idea to loan him to a traditional Bavarian rival like Nürnburg. Should be no such dramas here.
But all that adds up to is opportunity. Singh still needs to take that opportunity and do something with it, merely playing games at this level is not enough. He’s in the final year of his contract with Bayern and he needs to be dominating games. He needs to be showing himself off not only for Bayern but for other clubs around Europe in case Bayern don’t see the point in offering him a new deal. Remember that Hansi Flick is gone now. Julien Nagelsmann is the new manager at BM. Fresh from his success at RB Leipzig, a younger manager with a very analytical approach... that could go either way for Singh (though it’s obviously a better bet for him than, say, a Jose Mourinho type boss). Note that Singh changed his representation a few months ago...
So there you go, pressure’s on the bloke but it’s good pressure. And it sounds like SSV Jahn – the Red Shorts as they’re known (Rothosen) – will at least give him a bit of a helping hand on that front. FCN never seemed to. They played him out of position then they stopped playing him at all. But you know what? A little adversity helps sometimes, especially for a player who’d had a fairytale journey for the previous twelve months. It’s adversity that keeps you focussed, that keeps you from cutting corners. Plus there’s unfinished business for Sarpreet in the 2. Liga – a lot was made of him having to adapt to the more physical nature of it last year yet playing for a less physically focussed team oughta help on that front (should be fun when he plays against FCN).
Football is a fickle industry and things can change very quickly and Sarpreet Singh’s learned that lesson personally. What the fella might say is the best situation for the next step in his career now, well... he once said that about Nürnburg too. Time isn’t on his side either as ideally he’d have impressed in the second tier a year ago and be finding himself at a lower Bundesliga club or something right now. Possibly even on the Olympic team. But that’s not how it played out so for the 2021-22 season it’s all about SSV Jahn Regensburg, baby. Glory to the Red Shorts!
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