Suttner joins Fortuna Düsseldorf on loan
Brighton and Hove Albion have let Markus Suttner move to Bundesliga side Fortuna Düsseldorf on loan until the end of the season.
Suttner has found himself pushed down the pecking order to third choice left back as a result of the summer signing of Bernardo for £9m from Red Bull Leipzig and the form of Gaetan Bong.
Consequently, the Austrian has not played a minute of Premier League football in 2018-19, his only game to date coming in the Carabao Cup second round tie with Southampton.
His last appearance in the league came as a substitute away at Everton in March and his most recent start was nearly a year ago when Chelsea won 4-0 at the Amex.
Suttner had been in good form in pre-season with Chris Hughton trying him in a more advanced, left wing role. That made use of his excellent delivery from wide positions and he even popped up with a goal in the friendly win over Crawley Town.
Hughton clearly wasn’t convinced by the experiment though and any chance that Suttner had of reinventing himself as a left winger to push for a starting place appears to have now gone completely as the Albion boss moves towards a 4-3-3 formation as opposed to 4-4-1-1.
Suttner became the Albion’s third summer signing ahead of their debut campaign in the Premier League, arriving from Ingolstadt for a fee in the region of £3.8m. It was a prolonged transfer deal as Ingolstadt and the Albion haggled over £500,000 with Suttner even coming out with a ‘let me go plea’ before both sides eventually agreed on a price.
He was first choice left back for the first eight games of the season and then did battle with Bong for the shirt. The position constantly switched between the two until the Cameroon international nailed it down as his own at the start of February.
At 31 years of age, Suttner is probably approaching the twilight years of his footballing career and at this point in time he shouldn’t be kicking his feet around, not even making the bench.
The loam therefore makes sense for all parties and will put Suttner in the shop window ahead of a potential summer move on a more permanent basis. He signed a three year contract on his arrival at the Amex which will still have a year to run come the end of this season.
Fortuna are in a battle to stay up, currently sitting in 14th spot but well within reach of the Bundesliga relegation zone. They’ll be hoping that Suttner’s experience of the German top flight gained in his two years at Ingolstadt as well as him having played over 250 games across the border with Austria Wien can help them avoid the drop.
We hope it can too as Dusseldorf is one of the best five cities in Germany for beer and a fantastic footballing weekend destination given the plethora of clubs in the Rhineland area. For that reason alone, Suttner and his new team mates deserve to survive.
