Gnabry's Bremen breakthrough

“He just hasn’t been, for me, at that level to play the games,” said Tony Pulis, then the West Bromwich Albion manager, of Gnabry in October 2015. It wasn’t at all what the 20-year-old wanted to hear. After being on the fringes of the Arsenal first team, he had arrived at The Hawthorns that summer on loan for a season and looking to clock up Premier League playing time. 

With just 12 top-flight minutes gained, Gnabry returned to Arsenal in January 2016 and played in the reserves for the remainder of the campaign. Then Arsenal boss Arsène Wenger still saw the talented winger’s future at the club, Gnabry took a different view. 

While Wenger was left “very sad” by the departure of a player he had signed from VfB Stuttgart at the age of 15, Gnabry knew it was the right move to return to Germany and sign for Bremen.

Watch: Gnabry’s top 5 goals with Bremen

"Definitely it was after the West Brom spell," said Gnabry. "I knew that I needed to play again at a high level, and I think Germany in the couple of years since I moved had progressed a lot. So I thought: 'OK, take a chance on that, let me go back.' I didn't see a lot of game time at Arsenal the next season. That was the key factor."

It did not take long for him to be proved right. Though the team initially struggled – taking just eight points from their first 12 Bundesliga matches – Gnabry flourished. After making his first Bundesliga appearance on Matchday 2, he scored five times, all coming away from home to be the first man to do so in 21 years, and sporting director Frank Baumann said with confidence, "It's only a matter of time until he also scores at home."

Gnabry did actually have to wait until mid-December and the last home match of the year before doing so, and it would prove his only strike at the Weserstadion that campaign. But he ended his debut season in his home country’s top division on 11 goals, putting him among the top 10 goalscorers alongside the likes of Javier ‘Chicharito’ Hernández and Lars Stindl.

Most importantly, he had refound his love of football.

“In Bremen, I played regularly and had fun again thanks to the club and the environment around it,” explained Gnabry, who made 27 Bundesliga appearances, 23 of which were starts, in the 2016/17 campaign. “The fans and the city were always behind the club, even when things didn’t go well in the Hinrunde. I had a great year there with the team with so many great characters, and I often think back on it.”

Watch: The best of Gnabry at Bremen

He also worked hard to turn potential into the finished product. Wenger had suggested that Gnabry “had a tendency to take things a little too easy” in his younger years. Though he was still only 21, the young man had changed, meaning the player changed too.

"I remember he often practised finishing with his left foot after team sessions. He took a lot of balls and was working on his weaker foot - now he's scoring a lot of goals with it," said Alexander Nouri, Gnabry’s coach at Bremen, after seeing his former charge perform at the highest level for club and country in recent years.

"If you choose this way you need to commit to a lifestyle of how much effort you put in, you need to work and live for this way and my feeling was he totally committed to this. That's how he became an extraordinary player."

Gnabry’s form was so good that season that Joachim Löw handed him his senior international debut in November 2016. The 2014 World Cup-winning coach was rewarded with a hat-trick by his debutant, who played the full 90 minutes as San Marino were swept aside 8-0 in a World Cup 2018 qualifier.

“He has already proved recenty in Bremen and also with us in training that he’s in good form and can finish,” said Löw, who then brought Gnabry off the bench in a goalless draw with Italy four days later.

“We shouldn’t overestimate it as our opponents barely put up any resistance, but it's very good he came in and scored three goals straight away."

Watch: The best of Gnabry in the Bundesliga in 2024/25

Back on the domestic scene, things improved for the club. Bremen recovered from their slow start to finish just outside the European qualifying places in eighth. Optimism that the team would kick on the following season with Gnabry a centrepiece of the side was high. 

“Diego was here for three years. Mesut Özil too. Why shouldn’t Serge also stay here three years?” said Jean-Hermann Gnabry, the rising star’s father, when asked about his son’s future.

His son, however, had other ideas. He had already admitted Barcelona would be his dream club – "You are allowed to dream. Who does not want to play with Neymar or [Lionel] Messi?" – and though that move did not materialise, he did decide he would like to play with Thomas Müller, Manuel Neuer and Robert Lewandowski.

“Serge has informed us that after his first year in Bremen, which has gone very well for him, he would like to take the next step in his career,” explained Baumann. 

“Of course it’s a shame that Serge, who is a key performer for us, is leaving. He has developed extraordinarily and helped the team hugely with some great performances,” said Nouri at the time. “We wish him all the best for his future and his further career."

With six Bundesliga titles, two DFB Cups, a UEFA Champions League and a FIFA Club World Cup, Gnabry’s future with Bayern was written in silverware. While Wenger always believed he could reach that level – “this guy has no real limitations,” the French tactician had said – others had to admit they had been proven wrong.

"You can knock me over with a feather,” said Pulis after seeing Gnabry net four goals in Bayern’s 7-2 Champions League thrashing of Tottenham Hotspur in October 2019. “When people show what they can really do, really knuckle down and become so good, as he's done, it's absolutely fantastic."