After two major wrong decisions: can Niclas Füllkrug stop his decline? | Goal.com

Veröffentlicht am 18 Aug 2026 | Lesezeit: 6 Minuten

"The Hanover-born forward has scored his goals everywhere he has played," West Ham United said with delight at the start of August 2024 after signing Niclas Füllkrug. Tim Steidten, now squad planner at Cologne, was technical director at West Ham at the time and knew Füllkrug well from their shared Bremen days. He lured the striker to London.

Almost exactly two years later, the verdict is harsh: Füllkrug has not scored his goals everywhere he has played. For the English traditional club, who were relegated to the second tier, the bitter calculation is that each of Füllkrug's rare goals cost a hefty €9 million.

West Ham paid Dortmund €27 million in 2024. Füllkrug then managed just three goals in 29 appearances for the club, the last of them dating back to April 2025. A loan move to AC Milan in the second half of last season also went badly wrong, and Füllkrug suddenly found himself facing absolute nothingness. The Hammers were desperate to get rid of him this summer despite a contract running until 2028. He played no role at all in their plans and was even recently listed without a squad number in the official squad list. His No. 11 had already been taken over by fellow striker Taty Castellanos during Füllkrug's loan spell at Milan.

From a football-romantic point of view, being stranded in London now sets up a real blockbuster: Füllkrug is returning to Werder Bremen, with the Bundesliga club initially taking him on loan for a year. "We know that the last two years have not quite gone the way he imagined, but we are convinced he will continue his career successfully at Werder," said Peter Niemeyer, head of professional football at SVW. In the far north, where he also came of age as a footballer, Füllkrug had risen to become a Germany international a few years ago. Can he now flourish again there and finally enjoy better times once more?

Another question often asked around Füllkrug these days is: how could it have come to this? After all, he joined West Ham from the best phase of his career and saw himself as perfectly equipped for the best league in the world. After finally staying injury-free, Füllkrug had first fired Werder back into the Bundesliga and then in 2022/23 became a guarantee of goals in Germany's top flight too. The reward was his debut for the Germany national team in November 2022, and shortly afterwards he was one of the few bright spots in the DFB team at the disappointing World Cup in Qatar.

By the summer of 2024, the striker had become impossible to imagine without in the national team squad. He impressed as a mood-maker and with a strong scoring rate, then shone at Euro 2024 on home soil as an important substitute. In the previous season he had been Borussia Dortmund's No. 1 striker, reached the Champions League final with Dortmund and scored important goals along the way. Late developer Füllkrug, spared injuries at the time, seemed to have several rosy years ahead of him.

His departure from Dortmund after only one year came as something of a surprise from the outside. Borussia Dortmund had signed a high-profile competitor in Serhou Guirassy in 2024, but even so, then coach Nuri Sahin would reportedly have liked to keep Füllkrug. For the Borussia bosses, the main argument for letting the 24-cap Germany international go again so soon was financial. West Ham offered €27 million, which was €10 million more than Dortmund themselves had sent to Bremen 12 months earlier. They were happy to take the profit.

On paper, Füllkrug's physically robust style of play should have been a good fit for the Premier League. He admitted himself in a kicker interview in February that it was not, explaining that at West Ham he had "few touches in and around the box". "And that is precisely where my main strength lies."

There was also a huge amount of bad luck with injuries after his move to the Premier League. First his Achilles tendon troubled him and ruled him out for months, then a thigh injury laid him low just one month after his comeback. That made any rhythm in his first West Ham season impossible. Everything was supposed to get better in the second year, and at first it did, at least for the first seven matchdays, which he came through without injury, though by no means convincingly. Then came the next injury, before a departure had been on the cards for a long time around the turn of the year from 2025 to 2026.

Füllkrug wanted a fresh start in a different league and a different environment. Although he stressed that the World Cup was not the decisive factor, the dream of taking part in the World Cup certainly played at least some part when he joined AC Milan on loan at the start of January.

"I feel that the game suits me much better than in the Premier League," Füllkrug said after his first appearances in Serie A. "The Fußballgott has arrived," Milan wrote on X, when Füllkrug scored the winning goal in a 1-0 victory over Lecce in mid-January just three minutes after coming on. "Of course we know what an incredible striker Füllkrug is. He has proved that in the past. He brings qualities to our team that are very important," praised provider Alexis Saelemaekers.

He became especially popular with Milan's fans because he scored the decisive goal against Lecce with a broken toe. "I'm German, we are strong, we can handle pain," he said with a laugh, stressing: "I don't want to miss a game for AC Milan." His popularity at San Siro quickly soared, and DFB sporting director Rudi Völler also offered hope of a place in the World Cup squad at the end of January: "He is playing significantly more than at West Ham, and that benefits us too," Völler told the Gazzetta dello Sport.

Today we know that neither a World Cup appearance for Füllkrug nor a successful future in Milan came to pass. The goal against Lecce remained his only one in a Milan shirt, and he never got beyond the role of substitute. Former Germany coach Julian Nagelsmann did not take Füllkrug to the World Cup and the Rossoneri did not trigger the purchase option, even though it was reportedly only around €5 million.

So he initially had to return to West Ham, where the club largely ignored him. The search for a new club also proved difficult for the former DFB team's one-time great hope.

That makes sense in a way. Füllkrug has now reached an advanced footballing age, was most recently earning a handsome salary of probably €4.5 million per year, and has had two seasons to forget. Taking club and national-team games together, he has managed just five goals in 52 appearances over the past two years.

Those are not exactly bullet points that made Füllkrug particularly attractive on the transfer market. As he felt the style of football in Serie A suited his game quite well, a permanent move to Italy made sense. The speculation over potential new employers pointed in that direction too: Lazio and Fiorentina are said to have made tentative enquiries, while Füllkrug had reportedly even already agreed a three-year contract with Venezia. But according to Bild the Serie A newcomers found the fee demanded by West Ham too high, which is why Venezia backed away again.

According to Sky, the Hammers were asking €5 million for Füllkrug. That was possibly still within reach for some Bundesliga clubs, who are said to have kept monitoring the No. 9's situation despite the difficult past two years. Contrary to other media reports, Füllkrug was at least largely integrated into West Ham's team training recently, and his physical fitness is right. That, too, certainly played a part in the romantic return to Bremen coming about.

According to Sky Füllkrug is giving up money for the move, because Werder cannot pay him the €2 million per year he would still have earned after relegation at West Ham. But did SVW actually have an urgent need for a centre-forward at all? The Swiss World Cup participant Cedric Itten had already arrived as a similar battering-ram type of striker, while new signing Kenny Quetant and academy product Salim Musah are two young talents waiting for their chance behind him. But for Bremen coach Daniel Thioune, a formation with two genuine strikers is reportedly also an option, which makes a Füllkrug return seem sensible.

Expectations around the Weserstadion will certainly be high. Can Füllkrug do it again there, where he is especially loved and where he already once took his career to a new level, now at the age of 33? And could he, under new Germany coach Jürgen Klopp, play a role in the national team again in future?

The coming months will provide the answers. For now, only one thing is certain: Füllkrug has scored his goals in Bremen before.

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