There will still be purists who detest the idea of players making a fuss over their squad number, but it’s the reality of football these days.
Generally it doesn’t matter too much, but everything must be done to prevent the awful situations like William Gallas wearing the number 10 shirt for Arsenal or last season’s nightmare where Christophe Berra took the number 7 shirt at Dundee despite being an ageing centre half.
The Sun have reported on the latest with Timo Werner’s arrival at Chelsea, and it sounds like he will get to wear his favoured number 11 shirt.
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They point out that the number 11 is currently worn by Spanish winger Pedro, however they claim that he’s close to moving to Roma, and that means his shirt number will be vacant.
Werner has worn the squad number throughout his time at RB Leipzig and although some people won’t care, if it’s important to him and makes him play better then it’s only going to be a good thing for Chelsea.
The report even suggests that Werner will become Chelsea’s highest earner after penning a £170k per week deal to move to London, so there will be high expectations surrounding him next season.