Why Serge Gnabry was not good enough for Tony Pulis’ West Brom side and left Arsenal for £4m

Serge Gnabry will always be the one that got away for Arsenal. Well, one of them. If he lifts the Champions League on Sunday, the pain of his departure for £4m.

The German forward scored twice in the first half to give Bayern Munich a commanding lead over Lyon in their one-legged Champions League semi-final in Lisbon.

The second was a simple tap-in after the usually clinical Robert Lewandowski failed to score but his first goal saw him wriggle past three defenders before unleashing a left-footed shot into the top corner from 18 yards out.

Gnabry’s left-footed strike gave Bayern an early lead (Photo: Getty)

For those who have followed the Bundesliga closely, the 25-year-old’s 22nd and 23rd goals of the season would not have come as much surprise. If you told his manager five years ago though that he would be on the scoresheet twice in a Champions League semi-final, he probably would not have believed you.

“Serge has come here to play games but he just hasn’t been for me, at the moment, at that level to play the games,” said then-West Bromwich Albion manager Tony Pulis, who had temporary charge of Gnabry for five months in 2015.

“He’s come from academy football and not played much league football. Does academy football really prepare players for league football? And we’re talking about Premier League football here.

“As a manager you pick a team that’s going to win a game of football. You pick your best team, you don’t leave people out because you don’t like them, because of this, that and the other.”

Pulis, known for his pragmatic and often physical style of football and predilection for naming four or sometimes five centre-backs in his starting XI, was probably not the perfect fit for Gnabry, a talented, pacy winger who had been a sprinter in his younger days. Pulis could not see fit to give him more than one appearance in the Premier League. James Morrison, Chris Brunt and Callum McManaman, most recently seen failing to win a new contract at Luton Town, were deemed more worthy of game time.

Having grown up in Germany, Gnabry had been initially recruited as a 15-year-old and was signed by Arsenal for £100,000 back in 2011 from Stuttgart, joining an academy with a reputation for producing a developing young, technical footballers and a first-team manager in Arsene Wenger not afraid to blood players in the first team.

“I was 16 and remember that when I received an offer from Arsenal, I couldn’t believe it,” Gnabry said.

“I had no doubt because it’s an ideal scenario for any young player who wants to make a name for himself and work with a coach who relies so much on the youth team.”

His dreams of following in the footsteps of the likes of Cesc Fabregas quickly proved just that: dreams. A serious knee injury ruled him out of one season, Pulis’ lack of interest another and when he came back to Arsenal in January 2016, he was confined to the U21s. He started to pine for proper football

Wenger would have liked to keep him but his mind was made up to return to Germany and go to a team where he would play regularly. The Gunners told him he was part of the long-term plans, but there was little evidence that it was true. Instead, he went to Werder Bremen where he played 27 times and scored 11 goals in the Bundesliga, enough to warrant a move to Bayern Munich.

The rest, as they say, is history, and Pulis will wonder whether he perhaps should have given James McClean the odd night off and seen a bit more of what the young lad from southern Germany could do.

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