Former Spurs scout admits North Londoners ‘tried to get Timo Werner’

Former Tottenham scout, Micheal Webb has admitted that the Lilywhites tried to sign new Chelsea striker Timo Werner when he was a teenager.

Chelsea activated Werner’s £47.5 million release clause to sign him from RB Leipzig this summer on the back of four impressive seasons at the Red Bull Arena.

Having already built a reputation as one of the Bundesliga’s most potent attacking threats and after establishing himself as a mainstay in Die Mannschaft, the striker will now be hoping to prove his prowess in the Premier League.

Spurs fans will only be too aware of what Werner can do as the striker put in brilliant displays in both the home and the away legs against Tottenham in the Champions League last season.

It turns out that Werner could have been a Tottenham player if things had worked out differently, as Webb revealed that the club tried to snap him up before the striker left Stuttgart to join Leipzig.

Webb, who was part of Spurs’ recruitment team during Mauricio Pochettino’s first few years at the club, told Four Four Two: “Timo Werner was at Stuttgart when I saw him first. He was quite small but he was intelligent, his movement was very, very sharp,” Webb recalled.

“Sometimes you would see him as a striker, sometimes he would move left, move right and he seemed to move in sync with the players around him. Technically, he was very good and can score goals so you can see straight away he had an abundance of potential so even though he was small.

“He is one I followed a lot. We tried to get him at Tottenham but we could’t get him at the time. He has done the right thing in his development curve in terms of getting exposure in Stuttgart’s first team and going to Red Bull Leipzig and scoring the number of goals he has done.”

Spurs Web Opinion

If we are genuine about going for a type of striker who can push for a starting spot alongside Kane, Werner is the type of player we should have gone for this summer. £47.5m was certainly not an excessive price for someone with his scoring record and age. Given the type of signings the likes of Chelsea have made this summer, it will be extremely underwhelming if we end up with someone like Habib Diallo or Alexander Sorloth as the main understudy to Harry Kane.

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