Leeds United loanee Robin Koch is making quite the impact at Eintracht Frankfurt with the Bundesliga club’s head coach Dino Toppmoller hailing his ‘unbelievable’ impact.
If the former Freiburg defender felt that a return to the Bundesliga was his best chance of forcing his way into the Germany squad ahead of next summer’s European Championships on home soil, then his early performances at Eintracht Frankfurt are doing his hopes of a call-up under Julian Nagelsmann no harm at all.
Die Adler have lost none of the games in which Robin Koch has featured so far. And while there has been more draws than wins, a rock-solid performance during the weekend’s 0-0 draw with former employers Freiburg had Toppmoller singling out the Leeds United loanee for some rather gushing praise.
Leeds United’s Robin Koch shining in Bundesliga
“We are doing very well defensively,” Toppmoller tells BILD. “It’s unbelievable how Robin has fit in.”
Koch, who joined Leeds for £11 million shortly after Marcelo Bielsa guided the Yorkshire giants to the Championship title in 2020, scored his first Frankfurt goal last week; a second-half winner against Aberdeen in the Europa Conference League.
“Robin Koch does an outstanding job,” Toppmoller said a few days earlier. “(He has) total quality. It would be great if we could get him back into the national team through good performances. That would be an award for all of us.”
Considering how Germany have defended over recent international breaks – torn to shreds by a mobile Japan frontline before Hansi Flick bit the bullet – a revitalised Robin Koch could be forgiven for feeling he has quite the chance of catching Nagelsmann’s eye.
Four straight clean sheets for Leeds
Parent club Leeds, meanwhile, are not exactly struggling in Koch’s absence. Saturday’s 3-0 thrashing of Watford – a game lit up by the twinkle-toed brilliance of Georginio Rutter – was Leeds’ fourth successive clean sheet, a run the club has not enjoyed since the dinosaurs were walking the earth and Neil Warnock was beginning his coaching badges…
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