What does the future hold for Lech Poznan?

Lech Poznan seemed to be headed straight towards their 6th Polish league title with what is arguably the best Polish club squad since the Wisla Krakow club which made a long run in the Uefa Cup in 2003. Some would even argue this Lech Poznan team is better. After 20 weeks of the Polish Ekstraklasa, Lech Poznan sits in first place with 43 points, three points ahead of Legia Warsaw. Lech Poznan also made a nice run in the Uefa Cup which just ended last month to Udinese. Despite their success, Lech Poznan has been battling headlines in newspapers concerning about possible transfer speculation that may effect the club this summer.

One has to wonder how much it effects a team to keep hearing news about possible player movement while they are in the middle of a championship run. After losing to Udinese, Lech Poznan showed many costly errors in a 3-2 win over GKS Belchatow in league play, a team without star player Lukasz Gargula. It needed a 90th minute goal from Robert Lewandowski to give Lech the full 3-points. The next week, Lech beat Jagiellonia 1-0 on another goal by Lewandowski in a game which both teams had their fair chances of scoring multiple goals. And this past weekend, Lech was  clearly outplayed by last place Gornik Zabrze but got a gift in the 92nd minute, a own goal by Pawel Strak that tied the game.

Striker Hernan Rengifo has been linked to German Bundesliga club Hamburg, who has been watching him closely. According to that article, Hamburg is also interested in defender Manuel Arboleda, who has also seen much interest from Panathinaikos Athens. The Greek side is desperate for defensive help after showing many holes on defense in their loss to Villarreal CF. Celtic FC has been after Semir Stilic for a few months now and after failing to sign him in January, they seen keen on signing him this summer. A move which Stilic really wants. The most notable player is 20-year old striker Lewandowski. Nobody can expect him to stay in Poland for too much longer. The interest from clubs is long and for the best of his career, a move from Poland to a bigger club and league is what might be in his best interest. Arsenal has been said to be keeping an eye on Lewandowski. His agent, Cezary Kucharski, said theres much interest from Seria A and the German Bundesliga. And according to goal.com, Napoli is one of the Seria A clubs after the striker. Noone can deny that losing 4 of your best players would keep Lech a winning team in the near future.

Despite all the transfer talk, Lech manager Franz Smuda claims nobody will leave Poznan this summer as long as the club makes the Uefa Champions League. However, Smuda is in his own headlines recently about leaving Poznan himself, to become the replacement for the Polish National team. According to the report, Smuda has said if Leo Beenhakker is fired, and he was asked to take over, he would accept. Smuda earlier in the season was linked to go to Glasgow to manage Celtic. You got to think that Rafal Murawski will not want to spend time in Poznan if they are going to be re-building, even if it’s a quick fix. Murawski has itched to leave Poznan in the past, and the desire to do so now could be even greater. Murawski has 16 caps for the national team. At age 27, he’s not getting any younger. He has never been a big part of the NT and maybe a move to a different club and league could help him develop into slightly a better player. French side FC  Nantes  and German club FC Koln have had interest in the past.

Any kind of rebuilding process should be quick though. Lech Poznan is loaded with young talent that gets little or no playing time right now with their current stars in place. Strikers Haris Handzic, 19, is considered one of Bosnian top prospects and Anderson Cueto, also 19, from Peru, is a top prospect in his country. The club also has midfielder Jakub Wilk, who’s played a lot, but not in a major role. He’s still only 23 years old and seems to be a future star. Defender Marcin Kikut, 25, has shown to be a player who could be a solid starter if a spot opens up. The club also has 21 year old goalkeeper Jasmin Buric from Bosnia who is highly regarded. After all the transfers, the club will also have a immense amount of money to spend to replace them. The negative about the prospects is, there is no such thing as a sure star. These players could be great, but they could also be disappointments. Same with the signings.

It’s only going to be a matter of time to see if this team can handle the off-field distractions and preform at a level that they are capable of. If they play like they can, they should have no problems getting their 6th title of their history. But if recent results are any indication of how the rest of the season will bring for them, Poznan will have trouble securing the title. They will need to put all of their future worries to the side and just focus on the next 5 months.