Timo Werner is on the brink of joining Tottenham and is reportedly very keen to work with Ange Postecoglou.
There’s a sentence you wouldn’t have expected to read a few years ago when the German was the most coveted striker on the planet, Spurs were a dour, defensive team managed by Jose Mourinho, and Postecoglou was practically unheard of in Europe while leading Yokohama F. Marinos in Japan.
And yet the early contender for the January transfer window’s most Football Manager signing looks to be edging towards completion with Spurs agreeing a loan deal with RB Leipzig, which will see them pay all of Werner’s wages for the next six months and give them the option to buy him for £15m in the summer.
Spurs first explored a deal for the 27-year-old when he was a teenager at Stuttgart during the early days of the Mauricio Pochettino era. Almost a decade and one-and-a-half unsuccessful career moves later and he’s finally on his way to north London.
This is the second time in three-and-a-half years that Werner has left RB Leipzig for the Premier League, but there has been no long-running public auction this time, just a temporary deal hashed out over the space of 48 hours.
That is an indication of how things have gone for German football’s fallen golden boy over the past few years since that doomed move to Chelsea that yielded a Champions League winners’ medal on one hand, but significant reputational damage on the other, a once feared striker reduced to a social media meme.
Werner managed just 10 goals in 56 Premier League games for Chelsea and rejoined Leipzig for a cut-price fee just two years later. His move back to Germany was no catastrophe but clearly not a resounding success either.
In 2019-20, his final season before leaving for west London, Werner struck 28 goals in 34 Bundesliga appearances. Since his return at the start of 2022-23, Werner has managed 11 in 35 matches in the same competition.
Werner was once Leipzig’s Top Boy but as Dushane and Sully discovered at Summerhouse, there is always a hungry young upstart ready to step up. Lois Openda is Leipzig’s new leader and Benjamin Sesko is his right-hand man. Werner was once exceptional, now he is expendable.
A different and altogether more charitable interpretation of this move is that it is evidence of the Postecoglou pull. Werner pushed for a move away from Leipzig to try to secure his place in Germany’s squad for their home European Championship this summer and patently believes that playing in a free-flowing, attack-minded Spurs team is the way to catch Julian Nagelsmann’s gaze. News that Spurs are sexy again has seemingly reached the state of Saxony.
Spurs’ style should suit him. Werner is at his most effective when there is space to sprint into and Spurs are probers under Postecoglou, playing the second-most through balls in the Premier League (ironically behind Chelsea) this season. Had James Maddison not missed virtually half the campaign through injury, you suspect they’d top that particular chart over their London rivals.
They create plenty of chances – only Liverpool have fed their forwards more – which is handy when Son Heung-min aside, they lack ruthless finishers. Werner isn’t going to be of much use in a team that doesn’t generate many goalscoring opportunities but is more likely to succeed in one that does.
Werner is a willing worker too and his appetite for closing down is handy given Spurs’ tactic to press opponents high up the pitch: they have made more tackles in the opposition’s third than any other Premier League team. Werner’s attributes off the ball are probably as appealing to Postecoglou as his abilities on it. He can stretch the game with his pace and open up spaces for others while also putting a shift in defensively.
Anyone who watched Spurs’ 1-0 win over Burnley on Friday night may contest that a speedy wide forward with erratic finishing ability and questionable decision-making is the last thing the club needs with Richarlison and Brennan Johnson already on the books.
However, that FA Cup tie emphasised how much Son will be missed over the next few weeks while he is away at the Asian Cup. Should South Korea reach the final in Doha, a realistic possibility given the strength of their squad, Son will be unavailable for Spurs’ next four Premier League matches and the FA Cup fourth round.
Postecoglou’s attacking options on Friday consisted of Bryan Gil and academy youngsters Dane Scarlett and Jamie Donley. Buying a centre-back is Tottenham’s most pressing need this month – talk of a move for Genoa’s Radu Dragusin continues to rumble on – but they are short of numbers in attack too. Addressing that issue at the start of the month to coincide with Son’s departure and an injury to Alejo Veliz is very timely.
Factoring in Werner’s Chelsea’s connections, his career trajectory since 2020, and the speed at which a transfer that no-one saw coming has progressed, there is an argument to be made that this is Spurs’ strangest signing since they brought in a 34-year-old Ryan Nelsen to stabilise an ultimately fruitless Premier League title challenge under Harry Redknapp in 2012. The New Zealander’s five substitute appearances is the score for Werner to beat.
There is every chance that Werner is Tottenham’s 2024 version of Arnaut Danjuma, an opportunistic recruit brought in to add pace, depth, and an element of unpredictability to the attack, that ultimately fails to provide much success. But it is a move that also has potential.
Werner’s memories of the Premier League may be mostly unhappy ones, but he does at least have experience of the division and of living in the capital which should help him adapt quicker than a total newcomer to English football and life in the leafy north London suburbs might.
And if Postecoglou can transform Pedro Porro from a defensive liability into a Trent Alexander-Arnold clone, resuscitate Giovani Lo Celso’s diminishing Spurs career and convert Emerson Royal into a servicable centre-back, perhaps he can work his magic on Werner too.
Maybe, just maybe, this might work out.
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