How Sebastiaan Bornauw's 'meteoric rise' left him with 'no real prospects' anymore at Leeds United

Sebastiaan Bornauw's future at Leeds United is looking increasingly uncertain amid new speculation linking him with a return to Germany.

Hamburg have now joined Koln in the race to sign Bornauw, who joined Leeds from Wolfsburg last year for £5.1million.

The 27-year-old centre-back went on to make 17 appearances in his debut season at Elland Road, only five of which being starts in the Premier League.

His low fee last summer never suggested that he was going to be a key player for Daniel Farke, but few would have thought that within 12 months he'd already be deemed as surplus to requirements.

Leeds haven't strengthened their defensive numbers, either, with Tarik Muharemovic arriving from Sassuolo as a replacement for Pascal Struijk, who'd earlier left Elland Road to join Brighton.

Maximilian Wober has also left and left-back Isaac Schmidt has been sold to Young Boys, so why is Bornauw so out of favour at Leeds?

Sebastiaan Bornauw's downfall

According to German magazine Kicker, Bornauw has "no real prospects" anymore at Leeds, despite having another three years remaining on his contract.

With Hamburg said to be an option for the four-times Belgium international, it's hard to see why that might be the case.

Kicker's report does suggest that Bornauw's career might have failed to meet expectations, citing a "meteoric rise" at Koln after he joined them in 2019 from Anderlecht.

At Koln, Bornauw worked his way into the Belgium national team and scored seven goals in 52 Bundesliga appearances.

After two seasons there, Wolfsburg signed him up but his playing time started to slowly reduce and after four years, he was sold to Leeds for a small fee considering they were then a Premier League club.

So what's happened to him since his move to Elland Road and why is he now on the chopping block despite Farke being in a defensive defecit?

Why Leeds are now willing to sell Bornauw

It might be a very simple explanation.

Either the defender himself doesn't like it in West Yorkshire and wants to return to a league where he made a name for himself.

Or it could be just that Leeds don't deem him to be good enough and not worthwhile keeping around despite the dwindling defensive numbers.

As per stats by WhoScored, Bornauw averaged 29.3 passes per 90 minutes of Premier League football last season, ranking him sixth out of Leeds' defenders and well behind leader Struijk, with 56.

He ranked joint-fifth for interceptions out of Leeds' defenders with 0.9 per 90 minutes and first for fouls (1.6 per 90).

Jaka Bijol (7.8) and Struijk (6.4) both made way more clearances per full league game than Bornauw (5.7), who also lost the most aerial duels per 90 (3).

The stats don't exactly support those who might want him to stay - he was miles behind Struijk, Bijol, Joe Rodon and even James Justin, Gabriel Gudmundsson and Jayden Bogle in some areas.