There were some rumours he wanted to return to Germany towards the end of last season. If there had been offers from German clubs on the table and any of them had really taken his fancy he'd have been free to sign a pre-contract agreement with anyone from the start of January. I don't think his...
Did he actually say it was an issue? I thought the quote was something like "I've been away from home for 5 years now, which is a long time". That is just factual and doesn't point to some massive issue.