RB Leipzig’s Eberl does not want to answer the phone for calls from Saudi Arabia

Faces goalless Werner

Handed over players for the record total of 240.7 million euros and brought in new professionals for 152.5 million: Sports director Max Eberl and RB Leipzig have had an eventful summer of transfers. The Saxons do not want to give up other top performers such as Josko Gvardiol (21), Dominik Szoboszlai (22) and Christopher Nkunku (25), although the transfer window is still open in Saudi Arabia, for example – Eberl does not even want to be tempted to to achieve even higher income and to weaken the team in such a sporty way, he said on Sunday at “Picture TV“.

Eberl: “I don’t think the Saudis will stop at the Bundesliga. There will also be players who could be interesting. You’re still open until September 20th. But I’m not going to answer the phone now so I don’t get in the middle of someone asking me about a player.” is open until September 7th. The later date scheduled by FIFA applies to the lower divisions that are not registered in the SPL league association.

Eberl described the many arrivals and departures, including the significant transfer surplus, as a development towards a “more or less” normal Bundesliga club: “We have to make a profit, that was the task we had to fulfill. We did that.” The almost forced change, Nkunku had already agreed with Chelsea in 2022 and Liverpool drew an exit clause for Szoboszlai, was a “very big task”. “We solved it cleverly for ourselves, you’ll see that over the course of the season. We continued along the RB path for a bit. We brought in young players, talented players who have already proven something. We’ve also gained a bit of experience and we hope and believe that we have a very good and coherent squad that hopefully can play a good role again this year,” said Eberl.

RB Leipzig’s Max Eberl defends goalless Timo Werner

Before the game at fellow Champions League participants Union Berlin (Sunday, 5.30 p.m.), Leipzig took three points from the first two games. In addition, the “Red Bulls” won the DFL Supercup against Bayern Munich with a convincing performance. Newcomers like PSG loan Xavi Simons (20) or record signing Loïs Openda (23) seem integrated and have already scored goals. That makes it difficult for someone who has been waiting for a goal for more than 700 minutes: Timo Werner.

The 27-year-old was not nominated by national coach Hansi Flick for the September international matches and was only brought in shortly before the end by RB coach Marco Rose against VfB Stuttgart (5-1). Eberl placed himself in front of the attacker: “Timo is in a bit of a crisis, he hasn’t scored a goal for a relatively long time, everything is a bit more difficult for him at the moment. We have a competitive situation in our squad, we want to be successful. Accordingly, it is not an easy situation for Timo at the moment. But every player is supported by us. We want to get him back to the point where he might be able to score decisive goals for us again.”

Above all, Eberl sees a mental blockage in Werner: “Timo Werner has a history that is not that easy either. If the whole Ballermann sings songs about you, then that’s not nice and we should take that into account. We can work with Timo there, we can help him and give him the feeling that you belong to us. You’re in. He has to integrate and then he will score his goals and perform again.” The ex-pro also advises his player not to set too high standards for himself: “You have to scale back a bit and take smaller steps be successful.”

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