Manchester City youngster Tommy Doyle is looking increasingly likely to return to the Etihad from his loan spell at HSV Hamburg in January.
That’s according to Tag24, who say the player’s decision to fly back to England for Christmas ‘looks like goodbye’ for the German club.
He had joined them in the summer in search of regular playing time, but that has not proven to be the case, with him barely featuring in the first half of the season.
Despite the German club insisting that all was well and they hadn’t heard about rumours of him returning early, there have been plenty of suggestions that it was basically a foregone conclusion.
Tag24 pick up that thread and say that Doyle’s time in Germany ‘appears to be coming to an early end’ as the 20-year-old will not be returning after Christmas.
He’s flown back to England, and Manchester City, during the Bundesliga’s winter break, and that could lead to things going ‘faster than thought’.
That’s because, in the event of a possible return, he will have to go into quarantine for two weeks upon his return to Germany.
That would see him miss HSV’s training camp in Spain, which is set to run from January 2nd to January 8th and therefore miss their preparations for the return of league football.
Thus he would be further out of the picture than he already is; with this seen as a big hint the loan deal from Manchester City will be ending early.
That would certainly make sense, with the website also stating that ultimately it has ‘not been worth it’ for any of the sides involved.
Doyle has ‘rarely got a chance to play’ under coach Tim Walter, with just 71 minutes in six league games and 79 in the DFB Cup.
That’s nowhere near enough and a ‘final conversation’ at the beginning of 2022 should bring ‘clarity’ on the situation. All the signs, though, point to Doyle’s loan spell in Germany being brought to a premature end in January.