BIOGRAPHY
Bayern he had racked up 24 goals in
64 competitive games by the start of
2020 and become one of only three
Bundesliga players to hit double figures
for three German top-flight clubs – with
Werder Bremen, Hoffenheim and Bayern- in consecutive seasons.
From top to bottom he is a Team DFB
prize asset. And Low makes no bones
about it. “If he’s fit, he must play,”
declared the national-team coach at a
press conference in Estonia last autumn.
“Gnabry has all the ingredients to play
at the highest level. He’s strong on the
ball, he’s dangerous in and around
the front of goal and I like the way he
moves into space. I wanted to include
him in my squad for the 2014 World
Cup. Unfortunately he was injured.”
Early in 2014 there was much talk of
Gnabry, who at the time was in his third
season of a five-year stint with Arsenal,
being on the plane for Russia, with
Gunners manager Arsene Wenger
backing the youngster to be part of Low’s
plans. Arsenal’s German internationals
Per Mertesacker and Mesut Ozil were
said to be raving about the youngster’s
express-train pace and Germany’s
assistant coach Hansi Flick also publicly
admitted that Gnabry was in contention.
Low, a coach renowned for pulling
last-minute selection rabbits out of the
hat, was clearly ready to give Gnabry a
shot. He always has had a soft spot for
speed merchants and was ready, willing
and able to throw the kid in at the deepend. It made no difference to Low that
Gnabry was an Arsenal first-team novice
with just a handful of Premier League
starts under his belt. The Bundestrainer
was itching to roll the dice.
Tragically for the teenager, two months
before the start of the World Cup, he was
forced to the sidelines by an inflamed
knee and for six months the condition
kept him confined to the stands.
Effectively, this was the beginning of
the end for him at Arsenal. In the 2014-
15 season he did not feature at all in the
first-team and after moving on loan to
West Bromwich Albion, in August 2015,
he spent six months on the sidelines,
only getting onto the field of play for
a laughable 137 minutes.
West Brom’s manager at the
time, Tony Pulis – a conservative
football thinker if ever there was one- viewed the young loanee as a wasted
transaction; neither fit nor experienced
the quickest players have the worst
on-field instincts, but he stands for
the best of both worlds.
He is a natural finisher, too. One only
has to look at his recent highlights reel: a
four-goal blitz in Bayern’s 7-2 Champions
League win away at Tottenham Hotspur
in October; his hat-trick as Germany
crushed Northern Ireland 6-1 in a Euro
2020 qualifier; and his magnificent solo
strike in the 3-2 victory in Holland in the
same elimination group, cutting in from
the left, turning centre-back Virgil Van
Dijk inside out and firing a right-foot
effort into the top corner.
Just 13 games into his international
career he averages a goal a game. And of
all the great German strikers, only
Gottfried Fuchs, Gerd Muller and Klaus
Fischer had more goals after 13 caps. By
way of comparison, Germany’s all-time
leading marksman Miroslav Klose had
“only” managed 11 at the same point.
Nor does Gnabry often miss the target
in club football. In his 18 months atLondon calling...on
target against SpursLoan...a move
to West Brom
didn’t work out“If he’s fit, he must play. Gnabry has all the
ingredients to play at the highest level”
Germany coach Joachim Low