Arsenal loanee Karl Hein is now on a 12-game run without any minutes for Werder Bremen, with the January transfer window just days away from closing.
As Werder Bremen took on Bayer Leverkusen on Saturday, Karl Hein was named on the bench for the 12th game in a row.
Arsenal fans might assume 12 games equates to around a month and a half of football, based on their own team’s busy schedule. But Bremen are only playing in the Bundesliga right now, so it’s actually closer to four months since Hein last took to the pitch in competitive club football on October 4th.
To put it another way, Hein has played four times for Estonia during the October and November international breaks since he last played for Bremen in a competitive fixture.
The one time the goalkeeper did get some recent minutes was a friendly draw with St. Pauli, and he kept a clean sheet on that occasion. Funnily enough, Hein’s last competitive appearance was also against St. Pauli, and he kept a clean sheet then too.
With just a week left in the January transfer window, a recall and loan elsewhere seems unlikely. There are no serious reports suggesting such a move is on the cards, despite some vague links to Serie A side Lecce earlier this month.
But the usefulness of this loan is starting to become a serious question for Arsenal.
When clean sheets aren’t enough to keep your place in the team, and when you have no other competitions to stake your claim in, you’re effectively just hoping the first-choice goalkeeper gets injured.
The decision to send Hein to Bremen in the first place seems like an odd one in retrospect.