Football news - Serge Gnabry 'confused and angry' after West Brom loan spell

Gnabry joined the Baggies as a 20-year-old in the summer of 2015, hoping to get regular first-team football.

However, he hardly featured under Tony Pulis and returned to Arsenal after just six months of the season-long loan.

Now a regular for Bayern Munich and Germany, Gnabry says he still doesn’t understand exactly what happened at West Brom.

“You know what’s funny? For everything that’s been written in the papers about my time at West Brom, and what the manager thought of me and everything, I think I’m still just confused,” he wrote in The Players’ Tribune.

“When I got there, I was really positive about everything. The reason I chose West Brom over some other clubs is because of how much the manager seemed to want me there. Obviously, I wasn’t 100% fit. I was coming off such a long recovery. And obviously, I’m a certain kind of attacking player, and West Brom wanted to play a different way. But then … why did you bring me there?"

Gnabry only made one brief substitute appearance in the Premier League for West Brom along with two starts in the Carabao Cup.

“I got a 15-minute run at the end of the Chelsea match, and then I wasn’t even in the squad after that. I sat in the stands for six months, doubting myself, and I never got an explanation why.

“I wasn’t a perfect player. I was 19 years old. I was probably making mistakes in training. But, genuinely — and I am being 100% honest — I was giving everything I could. I can look at myself in the mirror today and say that.

“Then, of course, I started reading that I’m lazy, and I’m out of fitness, and I don’t have the level … it was so frustrating. To be labelled “lazy,” after everything my father put inside my head since I was a kid, it really changed me. It unlocked an emotion that I never really had when I was growing up. Anger. 100%. Anger.”