Timo Werner, 24-year-old Germany international, who plays for RB Leipzig and is reportedly targeted by Liverpool to replace Roberto Roberto Firmino in the renowned front-line of Salah, Firmino and Mane.
He likes to play across the front-line due to his versatility and he’s capable of sneaking into dangerous areas around the box in order to be in a goal scoring position or to create chances for his teammates. His capability in front of goal is one of his natural abilities alongside his blistering pace and being clinical in front of the goal.
Liverpool’s interest in Werner have been the strongest link among those interested in his signatures. And Werner never hides his desire to work with the Liverpool’s coach Jurgen Klopp, whose style of play, allows his attackers to press higher-up the field with intelligent runs and timing, which Werner seems suited to his style of play as well.
Looking at how Roberto Firmino has been deployed in Jurgen Klopp’s team set-up, obviously, Jurgen Klopp likes to sets-up his centre forward in a way that brings others around him into play, by dropping a little deeper whereby creating some spaces for the wingers to run behind the opposition defense.
Firmino has been a striker who possess such intelligence and skill to be used in such strategic system, which has benefited both Salah and Mane who are getting enough goals while drifting from the wings.
Roberto Firmino has been praised by his managers, teammates, and pundits for his positional sense, mobility, intelligent movement, and ability to make attacking runs off the ball, which often draws opposing players out of position and creates space for his teammates.
His form this season has seen him contributes 11 goals and 8 assists in 41 appearances across all competitions.
Is Werner capable of unseating Firmino at Liverpool? Does he have what it takes to bring others into play better than Firmino?
It will be intriguing to see how high Timo Werner takes the challenge. He recently spoke in an interview with a German news outlet, where he revealed that “assists are one of his strengths, though a striker is always defined by how many goals you score, but now that he plays in a new position under the new coach, he has been playing almost as an attacking midfielder, which means he’s got to play like the others do, like Forsberg, Sabitzer, Nkunku, and get assists”.
These new position under the new coach Nagelsmann, has made him to develop on how he links up with those around him. And he also reviewed how he has been trying to get beyond the image of him being the team’s goalscorer, hereby wanting to support his teammates instead.
His change of position due to tactical reasons under the new coach Julian Nagelsmann’ never affected his goal scoring duty, which has seen him scoring 27 goals in 36 appearances, while also raking 12 assists across all competitions.
Such return of goals and assists looks too good to be ignored for someone who has been deployed in an unfamiliar position so as to create some spaces for his teammates to impose themselves on the opposition defense.
His improvement in the new position was noted by his coach who stated that: “He (Werner) is finding space in between lines and he’s becoming harder to predict,” said Nagelsmann.
The fact that statistically, Werner’s contributions outshines Firmino in both goals and assist with lesser amount of (5) matches, there wouldn’t be a doubt that Werner’s signing by Liverpool will be a huge step up to their attacking threats and might as well force Firmino to seek for a new challenge somewhere else during the summer transfer window.
Timo Werner might just be the upgrade that Liverpool needs to turn their attack into the most fearful across Europe.
