Leipzig coach talks about Werner: Players can strive for opportunities based on their training performance, everyone is needed

September 12th News Timo Werner was listed as RB Leipzig's cleaning target this summer, but he finally decided to stay in the team. In the view of team coach Ole Werner, although Werner showed positive performance in training, he is still not enough to play with the team.

Leipzig will play away against Mainz this weekend. Werner has scored a total of 13 goals in his past 16 appearances. This is the team he scored the most goals in his career. Still, that doesn't guarantee that he will make the roster on Saturday's game.

At least coach Ole Werner thinks so, saying on Thursday: "We will release the roster tomorrow. I don't want to leak it in advance, but of course there may be such a situation: some players who have not made the roster before, or players who have played fewer in the warm-up game, will be on the roster this time, or win opportunities through training performance."

But he also emphasized: "Nevertheless, everyone must know that these guys have not played for a long time." This means: Timo Werner will most likely not board the plane to Mainz with the team on Friday. However, in the past few days, his chances of playing on the bench soon have increased.

Despite a specific transfer offer this summer (including from Red Bull, New York), 29-year-old Timo Werner decided to stay in Leipzig. After the window closing day, the team's sports director Sheffield announced that Timo Werner can return to the team through top-level training performances. And the forward is also working on this.

When Bistro watched Leipzig's open training on Tuesday, Werner gave the impression that the team's maximum-paid player (10 million euros) took the lead in training, was very good at communicating, actively engaged, especially showing a strong goal threat. This change must have been seen by coach Ole Werner.

Nevertheless: The new players Romulo, 23, and Conrad Hader, 20, are currently in the lead in the front line competition, which is also because what Timo Werner lacks the most is the physical condition of the game. Since Leipzig actually wanted to send him away in the summer, he was almost completely excluded during the pre-season preparation phase. Although he trained with the team, he could only sit in the stands during the game.

Therefore, Timo Werner has barely scored extra points with the head coach. And perhaps what can bring him hope is the coach's statement on the rest of the season: "I think we have such a roster size now, and every player in it will be needed."