When Timo Werner joined Chelsea as one of their statement signings in a summer of frenzied spending for the club, few would have envisioned him going into the new year on an 11-game goalless streak.
Coming off the back of the best season of his career, having scored 34 times in all competitions for Champions League semi-finalists RB Leipzig, the expectation was that his goals would help to turn Chelsea into title contenders. As things stand, he hasn’t scored in the Premier League for almost two months.
The lowlight of his short spell in England so far came against Arsenal on Boxing Day, when he was withdrawn at half time after an ineffectual 45 minutes.
Explaining his decision after the match, Blues manager Frank Lampard said: “I felt I had to make subs […] to inject energy. I think today Timo wasn’t giving us enough with or without the ball.”
Werner dropped to the bench for Chelsea’s next match against Aston Villa. Having come on as a second-half substitute and drawn another blank, it’s unclear whether he’ll be restored to the starting line-up ahead of Chelsea’s game against Manchester City on Sunday.
The 24-year-old has wasted several big chances in recent games. Against Villa, he got into a great position late on only to curl a shot over the crossbar. Against West Ham, just before Christmas, he was sent through one-on-one by Christian Pulisic in the first half but got the ball stuck between his feet and shot straight at Lukasz Fabianski. Later on in that game, he rattled the crossbar from inside the box. Against Leeds earlier in December, in a moment which instantly went viral, he tried to help Olivier Giroud’s goal-bound header into the net and somehow managed to clear it off the line.
Werner has not lost his touch overnight and there has been a degree of bad luck involved in his goalless run. He currently tops the Premier League’s ‘hit woodwork’ chart, having been denied by the goal frame five times.
Far from forgetting where the goal is, he’s accidentally found himself contesting a prolonged crossbar challenge with maddening accuracy. He looks low on confidence after failing to find the net for so long, but he’s failed to score by the finest of margins.
There are other mitigating factors in Werner’s disappointing form. The Germany international has admitted that he’s “struggling a little” to adapt to the Premier League though, of Europe’s ‘Big Five’ leagues, the Bundesliga is probably the closest to the Premier League in intensity.
Many players have switched seamlessly between the two over the last few years, with Kevin De Bruyne, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Roberto Firmino just a few examples. Werner also performed well for Leipzig in the Champions League and Europa League – including in their emphatic round-of-16 triumph against Tottenham last season – which is usually a decent measure of someone’s ability to acclimatise to a different rhythm of play.
Lampard has spoken about “tiredness” affecting Werner’s performances and, given the truncated schedule and resulting fixture congestion, that makes sense. Not only is Werner having to adjust to the Premier League, he is having to do so at a time when players are facing unprecedented demands on their stamina, physical durability and mental endurance.
Werner is also having to adjust to a positional shift, having been deployed mainly on the left of Chelsea’s front three this season. At Leipzig, he often featured in a little-and-large front two alongside Yussuf Poulsen that saw him receive excellent service while playing much more centrally.
Speaking to Sky Germany last month, Werner said: “I now play a completely different position than at RB. I came through the middle, out of the attacking midfield… this is of course something completely different now, I have to find myself again here.”
Werner may be going through a rough patch, but there is cause for optimism. He was starting to combine well with Hakim Ziyech and Kai Havertz before the former was sidelined with injury and the latter was knocked back by coronavirus.
Ziyech, especially, brings a creativity to the team which can help to get the best out of Werner and is now on the verge of full fitness.
Werner may have been left frustrated by a string of near misses, but they suggest he’s still getting into the right positions and, with fresh creativity around him, his barren run cannot go on indefinitely.
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from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/38X4e4S
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