More than once within the past couple of seasons, Serge Gnabry has been the subject of discussion for a potential sale at Bayern Munich, but the club’s front office and supervisory board have decided against selling him every time. He’s struggled to maintain a level of consistency that was on display in Bayern’s 2019/20 season under Hansi Flick, when they famously won the Sextuple, but he’s also had his fair share of injury problems to deal with that have not made things any easier. Not to mention,
much like most of the other Bayern attackers that are currently in the squad, and some that have very recently left, he’s had to adjust to tactics and playing styles of several different managers in Flick, Niko Kovac, Julian Nagelsmann, Thomas Tuchel, and Vincent Kompany.
So far this season, Gnabry has already hit the ground running for the German Rekordmeister. He’s started three of the four matches for Bayern thus far, having only come off the bench for the 3-2 win at Wehen Wiesbaden in the first round of the DFB-Pokal. In the Franz Beceknbauer Supercup and Bundesliga wins against RB Leipzig and FC Augsburg, Gnabry made his presence felt in attack. He provided 2 assists in the 6-0 routing over Leipzig and he scored once in the 3-2 win over Augsburg, both in addition to his assist in the Supercup win over VfB Stuttgart.
Nagelsmann has taken notice of Gnabry’s performances so far this season. He’s once again been called up to the German national team squad for the pair of World Cup qualifiers against Slovakia and Northern Ireland and Nagelsmann sang his praises in the press conference where he announced to full squad for the international break.
“The summer transfer window was quite good for Serge. We think he plays a good role as a central number 10. I don’t see him as a classic winger, which is what he mostly had to play at Bayern. The game against Leipzig was extremely impressive; it was one of the best performances I’ve seen in the past five or six years. It’s important for Serge to show consistency. He has power, good finishing, and a certain creativity. As a number 10 behind Harry Kane, I think he brings his strengths to the game,” Nagelsmann explained (via @iMiaSanMia).
Hopefully for both Bayern and Germany, Gnabry is able to maintain runs of consistency this season and avoid any sort of problematic injuries. In previous seasons, injuries have been rather disruptive to his runs of form, and it always felt like it was a bit of a situation of one step forward, two steps backward.
