Beware the Bundesliga bright lights

In September 2014, Chelsea had 26 players out on loan and calls came for the system of loaning and signing players to change. In Germany, Bayern Munich exert a similar kind of power, even if the club's sporting director Michael Reschke recently told German sports news agency SID that Bayern were not "adopting a principle a la Chelsea."

Reschke added that loaning was not a guiding principle for Bayern, but more of an individual decision. In the case of Pierre Emile Hojbjerg's move to Augsburg, a loan certainly made some sense, from the player’s perspective. However, for Bayern to declare themselves not a 'loaning club' seems a contradiction.

Both Sinan Kurt (previously of Borussia Mönchengladbach) and Joshua Kimmich (previously of VfB Stuttgart) are highly-touted teenagers who, before the rest of the market could blink, had signed deals with Germany's record-champions. While their move to Bayern clearly underlines their talent, and they haven’t been loaned out yet, they are clearly signings for the club's future.

There's no denying the coaching and facilities at Bayern would develop any youngster, but training and knowledge needs putting into practice. If Kimmich only plays reserve-team football and the last 10 minutes of an uncompetitive league game over the next couple of seasons, he will struggle to implement what he has learned.

Kimmich is 19-years-old and arrives as both a star of Germany's U19 Euro winning team as well as a player Pep Guardiola wanted. Add to that a hefty price tag for the German teenager - he is rumored to have cost Bayern around 7 million euros - and a spattering of youthful confidence and the potential is exceptional. To temper with that by reducing the amount of consistent game time would be detrimental, so he will most likely go out on loan.

Taking a gamble

Loan spells don't always end well though. Injury and bad timing often mean a player is soon 'gone with the wind.' This, in turn, leaves clubs looking elsewhere for fresh talent. Bayern players, Jan Kirchhoff, Julian Green and Mitchell Weiser have suffered from one or more of the aforementioned issues after leaving Bayern. The jump looked too big for Kirchhoff, who was then hampered by injury on a loan spell at Schalke. Green joined Hamburg at the wrong time, and although Weiser is apparently on the verge of a breakthrough, it’s been a while since he’s seen regular game time.

A loan can go well of course: Toni Kroos showed it in his year at Leverkusen, as did eventual club captain Philipp Lahm at Stuttgart and David Alaba at Hoffenheim.

Bayern youth products Holger Badstuber and Thomas Müller were exceptions. Neither went on loan: they took their chance and have since wracked up nearly 450 combined appearances for the club. Granted, Badstuber has been hampered by injury, but both have proven themselves at crunch time.

Kimmich is destined not to (really) wear a Bayern Munich jersey for quite some time. While the lure of the biggest club in Germany is hard to resist, as is ignoring the confidence boost that accompanies it, he should be playing regularly if he wants to get better. Maybe he will break through at Bayern, but history suggests he will have to prove himself elsewhere first.

Not just Bayern

Borussia Dortmund managed to get Mats Hummels through Bayern's nets and permanently into yellow and black, but the handling of Jonas Hofmann has been less than ideal. The promising winger, secured from Hoffenheim's youth team, was enjoying a spell in the first team but is now on loan at Mainz. It seems baffling that Dortmund, a squad plagued by injuries, would send one of their brightest talents out to gain experience when he seemed to be gathering it at home. Was it just karma that Hofmann suffered a ligament tear soon after his Mainz career had begun?

Leverkusen's Karim Bellarabi returned a new player form his loan spell at Braunschweig last season, even going on to play for Germany. At 23, he's finally arrived. The 20-year-old Polish striker, Arkadiusz Milik, struggled at Augsburg but is now excelling at Ajax Amsterdam.

Currenly on-loan Christoph Kramer is an interesting case too. Last year he infamously said that the buying and selling of footballers is "sometimes like a modern form of slavery," a statement he then subsequently apologized for. Still, his two-year loan at Gladbach is perhaps the best example of how well things can go with a good loan, when managed right. Leverkusen can’t wait to get the World Cup winner back next season.

Loan-spell generation

"Bayern, Leverkusen, Hoffenheim and Leipzig are buying all the young talent but where should they play?" Frankfurt's sporting director Heribert Bruchhagen recently complained to SID, as he discussed the dominance of Germany’s wealthiest clubs.

"The players’ agents often fails to make sure a young guy gets the most out of a move," added Bruchhagen.

In modern football, player potential is rapidly inflated and development appears blinkered. Add to that the ongoing possibility of a career-altering injury and the smaller window of opportunity young players are afforded these days, and it's easy to go from a promising talent to just another footballer if you make the wrong loan decision.

Being a talented youngster in football is like having millions of Twitter followers. Everyone is following you, but so much can go wrong so quickly. The highly-touted Norwegian youngster Martin Odegaard may have a huge future, but frankly the big clubs don't seem to give a damn about his present.