Rouwen Hennings scored just twice for Premier League Burnley – but he can’t stop scoring for Fortuna Dusseldorf right now.
11 games into the Bundesliga season, few will be surprised to see Robert Lewandowski and Timo Werner leading the race to be the country’s top scorer.
But sitting in third, behind the record-breaking Bayern battering ram and Leipzig’s fleet-footed talisman, is a name you might not be familiar with – unless you’re a Burnley fan of course.
Rouwen Hennings is far from a household name either in England or Germany but 2019/20 is shaping up to be a breakthrough season for a late-blooming 32-year-old centre-forward.
By mid-November, the Fortuna Dusseldorf hero has already scored nine times in 11 league matches – obliterating his tally from last season along the way. After netting winners against Koln and Mainz, Hennings fired home the first ever top-flight hat-trick of his career in Saturday’s thrilling 3-3 draw with Schalke at the Veltins Arena.
“It’s a special day for me. I never think I’ll forget this. I don’t really know what to do with the match ball,” a clearly bemused Hennings told SvenskaFans after the game.
Put simply, the former Germany U21 international is one of the best players in the Bundesliga right now.
And its fair to say few Burnley supporters saw such a purple patch coming from a player who found the net just twice in 28 games for The Clarets between 2015 and 2017. Just two years after moving to Turf Moor for £3 million, Sean Dyche’s side were more than happy to let him return to Germany for absolutely nothing.
After immediately inspiring Fortuna Dusseldorf to promotion, establishing them as a Bundesliga side and then scoring a famous hat-trick in Schalke’s famous old stadium, that free transfer looks one of the best pieces of business in German football right now.
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