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James Rodriguez has been voted to be Bayern Munich’s player of the month for March after receiving 51% of the total votes, beating out Serge Gnabry (29.3%), Robert Lewandowski (5.7%), Javi Martinez (3.3%), and Joshua Kimmich (2.2%).
During the month of March, James recorded four goals and one assist from a total of five appearances across all competitions, including his impressive hat-trick in Bayern’s 6-0 thrashing of Mainz.
Here’s some of James’s March highlights:
The people have spoken: @jamesdrodriguez is your March Player of the Month! #MiaSanMia pic.twitter.com/Kb0ifvGhfm
— FC Bayern English (@FCBayernEN) April 8, 2019
Before March, James hadn’t registered a goal for Bayern since October in their league win over VfL Wolfsburg, so he was in desperate need of a good run of form. He also struggled with a knee ligament problem for the majority of December and January, and didn’t work his way back into the squad as a starter until the start of February.
Questions still remain over his future as he approaches the end of his two-year loan spell from Real Madrid, as his form has been quite touch and go under Niko Kovac, especially considering how well he looked under Jupp Heynckes last season. It’s a tricky one for Bayern, really. James goes through these periods where he looks excellent and then he’ll pick up an injury or lose his place in the squad and reports will surface suggesting that he’s unhappy. The club have already promised a €200m squad overhaul this summer and have already purchased Benjamin Pavard and Lucas Hernandez, so if they wanted to buy James on a permanent deal, they’d have to shell out €40m, which might not be worth it.
Hopefully for Bayern at least one of two things will happen with James. Either we let him go back to Madrid, and look for a more suitable replacement, or he finds a steady run of form to closeout out the season and we find a way to use him to the best of his abilities moving forward. BFW’s own Ineednoname broke down some of what’s been holding James back in a nicely written opinion piece that you should all check out: