Official: Liverpool Target Timo Werner Signs for Chelsea

Two weeks ago, Chelsea were meant sign Timo Werner. And then, for the past two weeks, Chelsea didn’t sign Timo Werner. For those holding out hopes of Liverpool jumping back in and gazumping the London Blues to him, this might have been cause for hope.

Given the stance from reliable journalists on all sides that Liverpool had decided to drop their interest in Werner and the Chelsea deal was still on, it probably shouldn’t have been. Still, for some at least, it will have been. And today, officially, that hope is no more.

Today, Chelsea have officially announced the signing of Werner, triggering the player’s release clause and agreeing personal terms with the 24-year-old German attacker who had until two weeks ago seemed a Reds lock and perfect match for Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool.

Werner will see out the domestic season with Leipzig before joining Chelsea, departing the Bundesliga side before the August resumption of the Champions League. He will not be eligible to play for Chelsea in their Round of 16 second leg against Bayern Munich.

Chelsea’s ability to spend big this summer comes after a series of major sales in recent seasons—most notably that of Eden Hazard—and that the club is emerging from a transfer ban that has prevented them from reinvesting from those sales until this point.

For Liverpool and most other clubs, though—at least the ones that don’t exist as the public relations wings of oil rich, human rights abusing nation states—the current uncertainty cast by coronavirus is likely to mean a quiet offseason and few major transfer deals.