TTLB Opinion: Tottenham Hotspur and Timo Werner: An ill advised marriage doomed to fail

When Tottenham brought in Timo Werner on loan last winter, many supporters and pundits raised questions about his credentials to succeed at Hotspur Way, but Ange Postecoglou was positive about the impact that the Germany international could have at N17, and his logic seemed sound given how the Lilywhites were adding a pacy forward who possesses a high work rate and comes with Premier League experience signed at low financial risk to support a roster that is chasing European qualification. And while his initial run-in was impressive, when I look back at it months later, the fit never really materialised, and now the Lilywhites are rightly looking at whether to make the move permanent.

See, if you were to ask me, I think this wasn’t just a player failure; to me, it was more of a positional and philosophical mismatch. In Ange Postecoglou’s current structured system, Werner simply didn’t offer what the Australian demanded (and I am talking about this beyond just clinical finishing). What do I mean by this?

See, the former Celtic manager has designed the current system around a few automatic space rotations and structured positional play where every personnel has to work within defined zones while executing specific roles in build-up and combining quickly and cleanly in tight areas, while the former Chelsea forward thrives when playing in more disorganised attacking transitions so he can make those blindside runs, latch onto long balls, and take advantage of space behind defensive lines – all of which made him a household name during his initial days at Leipzig.

Now at Tottenham, where most games involve breaking down mid-to-low blocks, the German international’s off-the-shoulder into the channel running style suddenly is not irrelevant; now the spaces are condensed and passing angles tighter, so we saw his limited technical execution under pressure repeatedly being exposed.

But again, it is not just down to Werner…