Huddersfield Town have signed Jonas Lössl on loan from Mainz. The goalkeeper joins for the 2017/18 season with Town having an option to make the deal permanent at the end of the loan period.
This article looks at who he is, what’s his history, how he’ll fit into the team and includes some tips on how to get those two little dots over the O in his surname.
Who is he?
Jonas Lössl is a 28-year-old Danish goalkeeper. He’s six foot five and has played over 250 games in his career so far, all in the top-flight of either Denmark, France or Germany.
From reading a few posts on the Mainz fans forum it seems that he was well liked by their fans and they wished him well in his move to Huddersfield. It’s quite revealing that no fans were distraught to be losing him though, and it seems some fans were keen for him to move on. It seems he had a tricky year at Mainz, as a German football website suggests the Mainz coach was considering replacing him in January of this year.
However, Mainz bought him for over £2m last summer and he seemed to have built a good reputation at Guingamp. So he’s like a lot of Town’s signings, he’s got potential to be good but has something to prove too. David Wagner signed Elias Kachunga in a similar situation last season on a loan-to-buy deal and that worked out very well for everyone involved.
While it’s hard to tell from a short interview with HTTV, he comes across as a decent kind of guy. He’s friendly, articulate and seems to have a humble personality. These are qualities that will surely help him fit in with the rest of the squad.
My favourite line from his opening interview:
“I’m a goalkeeper, of course I don’t like running!”
Where has he played?
He’s played in Denmark, France and most recently Germany. He was a regular in the Danish international youth setup earlier in his career and he’s had a single cap for the senior Denmark team in 2016.
He spent last year in the Bundesliga playing 27 games for Mainz, before that playing a couple of season in Ligue 1 for Guingamp (no, I’d never heard of them before either) and before that in Denmark’s Superligaen for FC Midtjylland.
What are his stats like?
He’s kept 79 clean sheets in 339 career appearances, giving him a 23% clean sheet ratio. Honestly, I think this sort of statistic is pretty useless because clean sheets are the responsibility of the whole team and a great keeper in front of a dreadful defence isn’t going to do as well as a terrible keeper that never has to face a shot.
More interestingly, his pass completion percentage last season at Mainz was 57%. This is slightly better than Town’s stopper last year, Danny Ward, who averaged a 53%. These numbers don’t mean a lot until you compare them to a keeper in a more direct team, like Kasper Schmeichel at Leicester, who averaged a pass completion rate of only 40%.
How will he fit in with the team?
The statistics above on pass completion suggest he’s familiar with playing in a system where the keeper is expected to play out from the back and pass short. Distribution from the keeper is essential to the way David Wagner likes Huddersfield Town to play, so it’s reassuring that we’ve recruited a keeper familiar with this approach.
The YouTube clips of some of his better saves show that he’s not shy about coming off his line and has the athleticism to spread himself out and close down the angles. While YouTube highlights can be misleading, I’m expecting him to be off his line often and getting involved in the game. Whether this is a good thing or not will depend on his execution but I’m optimistic.
How to type the two little dots above the O in his name?
The two dots over the O in called an umlaut.
I had to Google it myself but on a Mac or PC you hold down Alt and press U to get one of these characters: ¨ and if you type an o immediately after you get the umlaut.
On mobile, you can press and hold the letter O to get extra options, including the umlaut version of the O. You may have to turn on “accented characters” in your keyboard app’s settings to make this possible.
Alternatively, you can just type a normal O and get it wrong. Your choice.