Since Timo Werner’s departure from Chelsea was a permanent deal and not a loan, he’s able to speak very freely about his time at the club. Unlike Romelu Lukaku, who has the spectre of a return hanging over him.
So listening to Werner’s take on his spell at Chelsea is interesting, especially while it’s so fresh in his mind. His quotes from yesterday in the German media were picked up by SportWitness, who translated them thus:
“The first season was viewed too critically. From the outside, but also from myself. The first season created a restlessness in myself that was unnecessary,” the Germany international said.
“We had won the Champions League, I was top scorer, we reached the Champions League again after a difficult season. In the end, everything was good!
“The fact that people still saw me so critically, even though I was top scorer, broke an Eden Hazard record – this negative response after a relatively good season annoyed me.
“Especially since Romelu Lukaku was signed for the next season and put in front of me.
It’s hard to disagree with a lot of that. There was certainly plenty of unfair treatment of Werner.
On the other hand, as he would admit, he made his own mistakes on his part too. As he says, his reaction to Romelu Lukaku’s arrival was to feel put out, when he should have been thinking about working together with the Belgian:
“I didn’t realise until later that I was far too negative about the signing. My perspective was wrong. I asked myself why he was put in front of me. Why is he coming now? The plan was for me to storm together with him.
“So mentally I was in a one-way street: if I had seen the big picture behind it, it would have been less bad. Now I have a different perspective on things.
“I have expanded my footballing repertoire and become more mature. We played extremely possession-oriented football at Chelsea under Thomas Tuchel. I became a better player in England.”
Werner will surely be much happier back in the Bundesliga.
Whatever he says the fact is he was underperforming lately.
All the faults should be put in Tuchel’s table, for his complicated philosophy, & wrong positioning of players.
Also, he is weak at motivating players, to achieve optimum, energetic performace.
For example, in selection, why would he always give Jorginho, (with all his glaring weaknesses), undue advantage over others who can do better in his position?
Werner could have improved over time, if rightly deployed & encouraged by Tuchel. Sad to see him leave, but it was inevitable.
Lampard did your wish by leaving Jorginho on the bench, you guys said he’s not good and should be axed. Besides Jorginho is a very good players, the best midfielder at Chelsea other than Kante.
I love Werner and I needed him to stay, but seeing that he has even lost confidence in himself is disappointing. A player who earns 272k a week could not even control a football. That was the lowest it could get.
I agree that Tuchel has his own issues too but it’s high time Chelsea started backing a manager and settling with building a team for a long term with one manager. You have to give Tuchel credit if you imagined that he is working with players that were signed by 5 different managers..
The future is bright for Chelsea let’s be hopeful.
My humble opinion