When discussing a struggling forward’s failed move to Liverpool, the phrase ‘dodged a bullet’ comes to mind.

But not quite in the way Timo Werner probably intended when he suggested back in 2020, shortly after joining Chelsea instead, that Stamford Bridge rather than Anfield was the ideal destination for the then-much-coveted frontman to make good on his seemingly-boundless potential.

‘Much coveted’?



You know, when people are going along happily with their lives unaware of the horrors to come.

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Half a decade on, having not even featured in a matchday squad since the defeat by Manchester City two months ago, Werner looks destined to leave Spurs without netting a single Premier League goal in the entirety of the 2024/25 campaign.

He’s unlikely to even be on the bench when Ange Postecoglou’s side face Liverpool this weekend.

While Kai Havertz hasn’t exactly set the league alight since making his own big-money move from Germany, the struggles of the man who assisted his winning strike in the 2021 Champions League final makes Arsenal forward look like the second coming of Kevin de Bruyne by comparison.

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If Man City legend De Bruyne is England’s finest Bundesliga export, then Werner belongs alongside the Shinji Kagawas and Henrikh Mkhitaryans.

Photo by Visionhaus

Liverpool can secure the Premier League title against a Heung-Min Son-deprived Tottenham on Sunday afternoon.

As for Timo Werner, who’s move to Chelsea opened the door for Jota to swap the Black Country for Merseyside in his place, even be a spot on the substitute’s bench appears beyond his reach.

One can only guess how Werner’s seemingly-doomed career would have turned out had Jurgen Klopp got his mitts on the once-prolific Germany international.

But considering Klopp’s record when turning very good players into truly great ones – Jota’s being the prime example of a footballer who ascended to hitherto unimaginable heights in a Liverpool shirt – it is not too much of a stretch to suggest that Werner, in an alternative universe, could have been ending Sunday night with silverware in his hands.

“Next to Chelsea, there were some other clubs I talked to,” Werner would explain shortly after he sealed that £45 million switch to West London.

We can do very well with this team in the next few months and years.”

Chelsea, of course, can lord that Champions League triumph over their long-standing rivals from the North West.

However, while the careers of Jota and Werner have moved in very different directions in the last five years, so too have the tales of Liverpool and Chelsea.

Werner also suffered the ignominy of losing twice to the Reds at Wembley in Chelsea blue.
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