The Daily Bee (August 10th, 2018): Premier League start

• Confusion about Schürrle comments

André Schürrle’s stint with Borussia Dortmund was short lived and rather disappointing, the winger could never come close to the expectations that came with him being BVB’s biggest transfer ever. Now with Fulham, Schürrle gave an interview to The Sun and talked about BVB and the reasons why he left.

During the interview he admitted that he left Chelsea to early, “Maybe the move to Germany was too early and I should have stayed at Chelsea a bit longer”. The bigger issue were his supposed comments about German fans and Dortmund’s fans in particular: “We had a difficult last two years when I was in Dortmund. It was not easy, the relationship between fans and players. It’s a big jealousy thing in Germany that you have from fans — not the hardcore fans because they always stand behind their team”, he continued “It’s not easy, especially for a German national team player who did great things in the past and maybe is struggling. That’s why I think most of the German national team play abroad because if you don’t play for Bayern Munich and you don’t always win, it’s difficult.”

This doesn’t really sound good, especially considering that his performances were less than stellar. However yesterday Schürrle denied to have made those comments and claimed that he was misquoted. In his post on twitter he did admit that it wasn’t easy for him because he could never fulfill the expectations that people had.

• Leão signs with Lille

Rafael Leão, who was a BVB target just a few weeks ago and was already seen in Dortmund has officially signed with OSC Lille. The young striker terminated his contract with Sporting after some players were attacked by fans a few months ago and was able to sign with the French club on a free transfer. However the Portuguese club has taken legal action against Lille, just like they did with other players that terminated their contracts and are now asking 45€ million from LOSC.

Given the uncertainty about this rather unique case it’s unclear how this will all shake out. This is probably the reason why Dortmund did not sign Leão, if Sporting are proven to be correct Leão would cost 45€ million which is just to much for an unproven player.

• VAR-changes (DFL)

The DFL has announced changes to the VAR-system for the upcoming season. One of the biggest flaws of VAR was that the fans inside the stadium never actually knew what was going on and why certain decision were overturned. Quite honestly this was a baffling decision from the start which created a bad atmosphere in the Bundesliga stadiums. This will be addressed, now the situation that will be reviewed will be detailed on the screens in the stadium and when the decision is finally made an explanation will be shown on the screens. Hopefully this will help with the confusion that we had last season.

In addition the offside-line that was planned for last season but quickly abandoned because it didn’t work will finally be implemented. This will hopefully make it easier for the referees to make quick decisions.

Daily Buzz: The transfer window in England is officially closed and the season will start today! So what are your predictions for the upcoming Premier League season, who will win the title? Who will be the player of the season? Surprise team?