Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has been served a decisive blow in his pursuit of a new defender this month after Bayern Munich announced Holger Badstuber has joined Bundesliga rivals Schalke.
Badstuber has emerged as a top target for City as Guardiola urgently looks to fix City’s defensive faults but the former Bayern head coach will now be forced to look at alternative options.
The Germany international has now joined Schalke on loan for the remainder of the season after struggling to make any impact at Bayern in the last three years due to a series of long-term injuries.
“Holger is a worthy player. He was often injured, but now he is physically fit again and wants to get more games. So he asked us to move to Schalke on a loan basis," Bayern's CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge told the club's offical website.
“We would like to meet this wish. We hope that Holger will be collecting a lot of missions in the coming months, and wish him the very best.”
The 27-year-old has only started 14 Bundesliga matches in the last three season, but has the best pass success rate of any player to have started at least 10 matches in that time (92.7%).
For more stats on Holger Badstuber, click here to visit his WhoScored player page
