Tottenham have completed the loan signing of former Chelsea striker Timo Werner from RB Leipzig until the end of the season.
According to Sky in Germany, Tottenham will cover Werner’s salary for the rest of the season and the deal has an option to buy of around £15m.
Werner returns to the Premier League after a two-year spell at Chelsea between 2020 and 2022, where he scored 23 times in 89 appearances in all competitions for the Blues.
The German forward then returned to former club Leipzig at the start of last season and scored 16 goals for the Bundesliga side last term. However, he has been limited to just 14 appearances and two goals in the first half of this season.
Spurs have boosted their forward line after Heung-Min Son left for the Asia Cup in January, with fellow forward Alejo Veliz out for two months with a knee injury.
Spurs midfielder James Maddison is also at least a couple of weeks from returning to action after an ankle injury.
Spurned chances at Chelsea extinguished Werner’s potential
Sky Sports’ Adam Smith:
Timo Werner arrived in the Premier League three-and-a-half years ago with great expectations. His playing style was likened to Mohamed Salah and the forward immediately displayed his direct qualities but struggled to convert chances in front of goal.
The radar below compares Werner’s per-90 statistics during his time at Chelsea with his previous three league campaigns in Germany and reveals the only metric that notably changed was his strike rate.
In terms of tangible numbers, Werner scored 10 goals in two Premier League seasons at Chelsea – but should have scored nearly twice that figure, according to expected goals (xG).
The shot map below plots all of his 124 shots for Chelsea in the Premier League, with points coloured in progressive red shades indicating easier chances to convert – revealing a raft of spurned chances in front of goal.
He was deployed in numerous positions across the firing line in an attempt to surface his underlying talent, but he failed to deliver while competing against a host of attacking options vying for starting berths.
Tottenham will hope Werner’s second attempt at cracking Premier League football will be a successful one. He will certainly feel he has unfinished business in England.
‘A Werner with a point to prove could be dangerous’
Sky Sports News reporter Dharmesh Sheth on Transfer Talk:
The more I look at the deal for Werner, the more I think it makes a lot of sense for Tottenham.
Number one, it seems really low risk. It’s a loan with an option so there’s no obligation to buy Werner and the end of the loan deal. Secondly, it is a £15m option to buy so on the financial side it makes a lot of sense.
I know Werner had a lot of criticism for his spell at Chelsea but the mentality of the player back then will come into play as well. Maybe he now feels he’s got unfinished business in the Premier League and maybe he feels he needs to prove a few people wrong.
That’s a really good attitude to come into a new club with and if Tottenham can tap into that then this spell in the Premier League could be a lot more successful for Werner.
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Timo Werner got Chelsea fans on the edge of their seats with this superb strike to open his Premier League account
‘Risk in the deal all on Werner’
Evening Standard chief football correspondent Dan Kilpatrick on Transfer Talk:
The risk in this deal is all on Werner. If he flops at Spurs and if this loan deal doesn’t work, he’s probably not going to get another big move.
On the other hand, there’s no real risk for Spurs.
The best-case scenarios he gets back to somewhere near his best form and Spurs can sign him for a third of what Chelsea paid for him four years ago.
The worst-case scenario for them is that he doesn’t do much. He’s probably still an upgrade on Bryan Gil and they just send him back to RB Leipzig in the summer.
There isn’t a huge amount of risk here and it strikes me as a canny piece of business with restively little downside.
Follow the January transfer window with Sky Sports
The winter transfer window is now open and will close at 11pm in England and midnight in Scotland on Thursday 1 February, 2024.
To ensure harmonisation with the major leagues in Europe, the closing dates were set following discussions with the EFL, DFL, Serie A, LaLiga, and LFP, who will all close their summer and winter windows on 1 September and 1 February respectively.
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