San Jose Earthquakes’ Timo Werner says his time at Tottenham Hotspur was positive despite his mixed spell in north London.
The Premier League side initially signed the forward on loan from RB Leipzig in January 2024.
He finished the second half of the 2023/24 season at Tottenham with two goals and four assists from 14 matches. Ange Postecoglou was in charge of the Premier League side between 2023 and 2025.
Although the 30-year-old statistics weren’t that impressive, it was enough for Spurs to extend his loan stay for the 2024/25 season. The two clubs had agreed to a €12m buying option.
The north London club’s decision to extend didn’t pay off as he struggled with form and fitness. To put it in context, he played 946 minutes from 27 matches, managing a goal and two assists.
Postecoglou had dropped him from the Europa League squad for the knockout stages. In February 2025, the English club had decided not to activate the €12m purchase clause. Two months later, Leipzig also said his loan at Spurs didn’t go well.
Werner on his Tottenham spell
The German returned to RB Leipzig in the summer of 2025 and left them for San Jose Earthquakes in January.
Transfermarkt caught up with Timo Werner to discuss his career so far. Sport Witness are focusing mainly on his time at Tottenham Hotspur and in England.
“Things just weren’t going well there overall. On top of that, I was on loan, which always makes things a bit more difficult for a player,” he said.
“They simply wanted to go in a different direction: spend more money, rejuvenate the squad. I had to accept that decision. These are strategic decisions a club has to make. I enjoyed my first year there, and I contributed. I look back on my time there positively.”
This suggests he was open to the idea of extending his stay at the north London club.
Last summer, Spurs appointed Thomas Frank as their new manager and invested over €200m on new players in his first window. A large part of it went on signing Xavi Simons and Mohammed Kudus.
Tottenham flop happy with career so far
Timo Werner started at VfB Stuttgart and left them for RB Leipzig in 2016. He spent four years with the latter before moving to Chelsea.
The attacker has won the Champions League, UEFA Super Cup and the Club World Cup with the Blues and the Europa League with Tottenham Hotspur.
Werner explained: “Ever since my breakthrough as a 20-year-old, I’ve been viewed critically as a person, whether I was playing for Chelsea or Leipzig, no matter how many goals I scored.”
“It felt as though the public was holding me to a different standard. The truth is, my career has been a roller coaster ride. Sometimes I scored goals, sometimes I missed, sometimes I played for the national team, and sometimes I didn’t. But I also won the Champions League with Chelsea. When I look back on what I’ve been able to experience in my career, I’m pretty satisfied with how everything turned out in the end.”
