🇩🇪 Timo Werner

[robsblubot 3,595]

1 minute ago, communicate said:

I think more of space behind. But you are right, Bundesliga is attacker dreamland

Agreed, but it's not like he can't get into the right places to score. His finishing is just lacking atm and I also think that his current role in the team won't help his confidence either.

[NikkiCFC 8,334]

CF or winger I can only imagine what would Giroud or Abraham or even CHO get if they didn't score 9 games with so many open chances. 

 

[robsblubot 3,595]

2 hours ago, NikkiCFC said:

CF or winger I can only imagine what would Giroud or Abraham or even CHO get if they didn't score 9 games with so many open chances. 

 

I wouldn't downplay werner's ability to often get himself into the right positions (behind the opposition's defense line), creating open chances for him and his teammates.

This will be very important in big games where his energy, pace, and skill can help us unlock tight defenses.

Besides, it is his first season in the PL, isn't it? Hardly fair to compare him to players who were either born in the PL, or have played forever in it.

[communicate 2,703]

4 hours ago, robsblubot said:

Agreed, but it's not like he can't get into the right places to score. His finishing is just lacking atm and I also think that his current role in the team won't help his confidence either.

I think his role to some degree is fine. He need to do less wing play and stay higher defensively, probably we need to defend in 442 more

[Jase 43,479]

4 hours ago, NikkiCFC said:

CF or winger I can only imagine what would Giroud or Abraham or even CHO get if they didn't score 9 games with so many open chances. 

He didn't play the full game every time but Abraham went through a similar goal drought last season, on either side of the lockdown, and people wanted him gone. 🤷‍♂️

[Fernando 6,585]

Despite having a bad season i can see his mentality being strong, stronger then that Morata. 

Drogba also had a bad first season but it was his mentality that pushed him on the next couple of season. 

Something similar with Werner, he will not be like Morata but he will flourish. 

[manpe 10,861]

18 hours ago, Jason said:

We bought a 50 million striker to provide assists (a lucky one at that tonight) rather than score goals...

Has also hit the post 5 times in the league this season. More than anyone else, I believe. 

He squandered two great close range chances yesterday - one straight at the keeper and one hit the bar. He'd easily have 15+ goals already and comfortably be our top scorer across all comps playing as a winger, but he's decided to turn into a Morata when it matters the most.

Yes he's playing out of position all the time due to our wingers being made out of glass, but that is no excuse when he fluffs his chances a few meters away from goal. He needs to become much better at what he was bought to do. However I'm confident he'll bounce back, he has that strikery arrogance about him that I like and that all great strikers have.

[King Kante 1,643]

50 minutes ago, Fernando said:

Despite having a bad season i can see his mentality being strong, stronger then that Morata. 

Drogba also had a bad first season but it was his mentality that pushed him on the next couple of season. 

Something similar with Werner, he will not be like Morata but he will flourish. 

I also do not think he will end up like Morata and he will end the season with decent numbers.

Drogba's first season however wasn't as bad as some people make out, for sure he wasn't as great as he became but he did do a lot of donkey work that was really under appreciated throughout his career. The problem with his first season was more to do with cultural things like diving, expectations from a PL club for expensive signings and British culture vs French as it was clear he never wanted to leave France and only went as Marseille wanted the cash. 

The bigger problem for me is where he fits in a 433. For me, when Puli and Ziyech are fit he doesn't play in a WF position and I am not sure he can play the No.9 position, although this is preferable to LWF, as at RB he played off Poulsen. 

[Jase 43,479]

1 hour ago, manpe said:

He squandered two great close range chances yesterday - one straight at the keeper and one hit the bar. He'd easily have 15+ goals already and comfortably be our top scorer across all comps playing as a winger, but he's decided to turn into a Morata when it matters the most.

TBH, Pulisic's pass for the first one was not the best and he did everything right for the second opportunity, the bar (and luck) just happened to be in the way. 

[Jase 43,479]

1 hour ago, King Kante said:

The bigger problem for me is where he fits in a 433. For me, when Puli and Ziyech are fit he doesn't play in a WF position and I am not sure he can play the No.9 position, although this is preferable to LWF, as at RB he played off Poulsen. 

I wonder if 4-3-3 will still be the main formation like next season. It might be the best fit now but that could all change when we continue to revamp the squad. 

[manpe 10,861]

29 minutes ago, Jason said:

TBH, Pulisic's pass for the first one was not the best and he did everything right for the second opportunity, the bar (and luck) just happened to be in the way. 

Hitting the bar is a shot off target, so no, he didn't to *everything* right. Should have kept the shot lower.

[Jase 43,479]

19 minutes ago, manpe said:

Hitting the bar is a shot off target, so no, he didn't to *everything* right. Should have kept the shot lower.

But it's not like he completely skied it over, is it? It happens to everyone and on another day, that would have gone in. Moreover, the only reason this opportunity is even talked about is because of his goal drought. Every chance not converted gets magnified 10x more than usual and some times over-analyzed. 

[King Kante 1,643]

3 hours ago, Jason said:

I wonder if 4-3-3 will still be the main formation like next season. It might be the best fit now but that could all change when we continue to revamp the squad. 

Personally, I think it will, that or 4231 which is a possibility with Rice. However, I would still have money on 433 as 4231 would cause problems in that Harvetz, Mount and Werner would all be competing for the No.10 role. Kova would also slightly struggle for game time as he would have Rice and Kante in front of him plus a mixture of: Billy, Jorgi and Gallagher. From all the signings, it appears to me 433 is the idea. As that formation is pretty much best fit for the current core of thw squad which isn't going to change much. Only other one I can see if 442 diamond but as we haven't played it, I cannot see it. 

[Jase 43,479]

7 minutes ago, King Kante said:

Personally, I think it will, that or 4231 which is a possibility with Rice. However, I would still have money on 433 as 4231 would cause problems in that Harvetz, Mount and Werner would all be competing for the No.10 role. Kova would also slightly struggle for game time as he would have Rice and Kante in front of him plus a mixture of: Billy, Jorgi and Gallagher. From all the signings, it appears to me 433 is the idea. As that formation is pretty much best fit for the current core of thw squad which isn't going to change much. Only other one I can see if 442 diamond but as we haven't played it, I cannot see it. 

Werner competing for the No.10 role?  If the 4-2-3-1 would cause problems because Mount and Havertz would be competing for the No.10 role (Havertz has the higher ceiling compared to Mount in terms of creativity and goal threat to shine in the No.10 role), then equally, the 4-3-3 is already causing problems because of how Werner is being used and I have major doubt whether Lampard even sees Werner as the main ST in the long run in this 4-3-3.

If we are to play Werner as the main striker, then 4-2-3-1 could be a possibility to do so. Unlike 4-3-3 where he might get isolated upfront (would still like to see it tried at some point), he would have a No.10 closer to support him in addition to the 2 wingers. At the moment, I'm not sure if 4-3-3 will be main formation going forward especially when Lampard just stumbled upon it.

[robsblubot 3,595]

5 hours ago, manpe said:

He squandered two great close range chances yesterday - one straight at the keeper and one hit the bar. He'd easily have 15+ goals already and comfortably be our top scorer across all comps playing as a winger, but he's decided to turn into a Morata when it matters the most.

Yes he's playing out of position all the time due to our wingers being made out of glass, but that is no excuse when he fluffs his chances a few meters away from goal. He needs to become much better at what he was bought to do. However I'm confident he'll bounce back, he has that strikery arrogance about him that I like and that all great strikers have.

I think both are valid excuses: out of position and new to the league

esp the latter as he gets less time on the ball and time to adjust before he can apply the finish.

Running a diagonal from the wing (plus some defensive tasks) is VERY different from staying positioned in the center of the pitch. Winger is a far more tasking position that involves far more energy and dedication than a positioned, or even a false 9, striker.

 

[Jase 43,479]

Wonderful yet wasteful: Chelsea must unlock the best of Timo Werner

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/dec/25/chelsea-best-timo-werner-frank-lampard

Naturally the Germans have a word for it. They call it chancentod: literally, “chance death”. Being described as a chancentod doesn’t necessarily make you a bad player. It’s not a tag you’re stuck with for life. All it means is that at the moment, you possess an unerring and uncanny ability to squander whatever goalscoring opportunity is presented to you. Which, for all his manifold qualities, feels like a pretty good way of describing Timo Werner at Chelsea right now.

To watch Werner of late is to be torn between pity and disbelief. The £52m summer signing has now gone nine club games without a goal in all competitions. But this isn’t your regular dry patch. Werner isn’t just not scoring. He’s dramatically, spectacularly not scoring.

There was the fluffed one-on-one against West Ham on Monday night. A scarcely credible miss against Leeds when he somehow managed to not score from one yard out, with no goalkeeper. Numerous glorious openings scuffed, ballooned, gently rolled wide. According to Premier League stats, Werner has missed eight “big chances” this season.

And yet, there are no visible signs of desperation or panic. Everyone from Chelsea fans to Frank Lampard to Werner himself seems satisfied that this is simply a lean patch, and that the form that earned him 28 Bundesliga goals for RB Leipzig last season – second only to Robert Lewandowski’s 34 – will return before long.

This is almost certainly true. Even at his apparent worst, Werner is still a brilliant, horrific forward to play against: quick, clever and aggressive, with an elastic turn of pace and a good, pressing engine. But, in a way, Werner’s dry spell raises questions that go beyond simple issues of confidence and rhythm. Rather, by analysing how Werner is missing, Chelsea may just learn a thing or two about themselves in the process.

The first thing to note before the Boxing Day game at Arsenal is that Werner has always been a curiously uneven striker. His first two seasons at Stuttgart brought seven goals in 62 games. Last year began with a run of one goal in eight games, and ended with 24 in 25. This season, he waited until October for his first league goal, then went on a run of seven goals in 17 days for club and country. Werner has always scored goals. But he tends to score them in clusters.

This is the pact you enter into when you build your team around Werner: he misses chances that others don’t even create. The intelligence of his movement, his speed in transition, the ability to slip past a defender and get to the ball first: this is what ultimately makes him so devastating. But Werner is not a natural finisher in the way most of us imagine the term.

Go through some of his attempts for Leipzig over the last few seasons and what stands out is the quirkiness of the technique. Werner strikes the ball unusually high on his foot, almost in the crook of his ankle. For this reason he tends to prefer the ball at his side, where he can wrap his leg around the shot, rather than in front of him.

Struck sweetly, Werner’s shot is a thing of terror: a snappy, violent motion that offers in extreme power what it lacks in finesse and repeatability. But if the timing is a fraction out, he often comes over the top of the ball. He rarely scores with the instep. He rarely scores headers. He rarely scores curlers. While he misses a disproportionate number of easy chances, he also scores a disproportionate number of hard ones. Asked once to describe his finishing style, Werner replied: “Don’t think too much, and hope the ball goes in.”

Now, perhaps, we see why Werner has needed a certain period of adaptation. Leipzig’s slingy counterattacking style, with its sweeping moves and quick interchanges, suited his see-ball-hit-ball game perfectly, allowing him to meet the ball in space and on the run. Cutting in off the left flank gave him the best opportunity of addressing the ball side-on.

Chelsea, by contrast, come up more often against deep-set defences and move the ball more slowly than Leipzig in any case. Take Werner’s two big chances against West Ham, where he received the ball in a static position and thus struggled to get it out from under his feet. “It’s tougher than I thought,” he says of his start in English football.

So how to get the best out of Werner? Julian Nagelsmann, his last manager, believes you need to start Werner deeper, even as a No 8, so he has momentum when he receives the ball. Initially Lampard deployed him as a centre-forward, later moving him to the left in order to accommodate Tammy Abraham. Abraham’s five goals and Werner’s four assists suggest it is working to a degree.

Yet the suspicion remains that somewhere out there lies an even neater solution, that a player of Werner’s bespoke gifts demands a bespoke approach, something more creative than simply giving him a rest and hoping he comes good.

Perhaps Werner is partially trapped in expectations. Signed in response to Lampard’s request for a proven goalscorer, his record suggested he would seamlessly fill that role. In fact, he is a far more complex player than that: a genuinely fascinating forward who defies easy categorisation. Not purely a poacher, not purely a creator, not purely a wide forward, but a puzzle: one that Lampard, an inexperienced coach still grappling with the riches at his disposal, is still trying to solve.

[Vesper 30,224]

2 hours ago, Jason said:

Wonderful yet wasteful: Chelsea must unlock the best of Timo Werner

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/dec/25/chelsea-best-timo-werner-frank-lampard

Naturally the Germans have a word for it. They call it chancentod: literally, “chance death”. Being described as a chancentod doesn’t necessarily make you a bad player. It’s not a tag you’re stuck with for life. All it means is that at the moment, you possess an unerring and uncanny ability to squander whatever goalscoring opportunity is presented to you. Which, for all his manifold qualities, feels like a pretty good way of describing Timo Werner at Chelsea right now.

To watch Werner of late is to be torn between pity and disbelief. The £52m summer signing has now gone nine club games without a goal in all competitions. But this isn’t your regular dry patch. Werner isn’t just not scoring. He’s dramatically, spectacularly not scoring.

There was the fluffed one-on-one against West Ham on Monday night. A scarcely credible miss against Leeds when he somehow managed to not score from one yard out, with no goalkeeper. Numerous glorious openings scuffed, ballooned, gently rolled wide. According to Premier League stats, Werner has missed eight “big chances” this season.

And yet, there are no visible signs of desperation or panic. Everyone from Chelsea fans to Frank Lampard to Werner himself seems satisfied that this is simply a lean patch, and that the form that earned him 28 Bundesliga goals for RB Leipzig last season – second only to Robert Lewandowski’s 34 – will return before long.

This is almost certainly true. Even at his apparent worst, Werner is still a brilliant, horrific forward to play against: quick, clever and aggressive, with an elastic turn of pace and a good, pressing engine. But, in a way, Werner’s dry spell raises questions that go beyond simple issues of confidence and rhythm. Rather, by analysing how Werner is missing, Chelsea may just learn a thing or two about themselves in the process.

The first thing to note before the Boxing Day game at Arsenal is that Werner has always been a curiously uneven striker. His first two seasons at Stuttgart brought seven goals in 62 games. Last year began with a run of one goal in eight games, and ended with 24 in 25. This season, he waited until October for his first league goal, then went on a run of seven goals in 17 days for club and country. Werner has always scored goals. But he tends to score them in clusters.

This is the pact you enter into when you build your team around Werner: he misses chances that others don’t even create. The intelligence of his movement, his speed in transition, the ability to slip past a defender and get to the ball first: this is what ultimately makes him so devastating. But Werner is not a natural finisher in the way most of us imagine the term.

Go through some of his attempts for Leipzig over the last few seasons and what stands out is the quirkiness of the technique. Werner strikes the ball unusually high on his foot, almost in the crook of his ankle. For this reason he tends to prefer the ball at his side, where he can wrap his leg around the shot, rather than in front of him.

Struck sweetly, Werner’s shot is a thing of terror: a snappy, violent motion that offers in extreme power what it lacks in finesse and repeatability. But if the timing is a fraction out, he often comes over the top of the ball. He rarely scores with the instep. He rarely scores headers. He rarely scores curlers. While he misses a disproportionate number of easy chances, he also scores a disproportionate number of hard ones. Asked once to describe his finishing style, Werner replied: “Don’t think too much, and hope the ball goes in.”

Now, perhaps, we see why Werner has needed a certain period of adaptation. Leipzig’s slingy counterattacking style, with its sweeping moves and quick interchanges, suited his see-ball-hit-ball game perfectly, allowing him to meet the ball in space and on the run. Cutting in off the left flank gave him the best opportunity of addressing the ball side-on.

Chelsea, by contrast, come up more often against deep-set defences and move the ball more slowly than Leipzig in any case. Take Werner’s two big chances against West Ham, where he received the ball in a static position and thus struggled to get it out from under his feet. “It’s tougher than I thought,” he says of his start in English football.

So how to get the best out of Werner? Julian Nagelsmann, his last manager, believes you need to start Werner deeper, even as a No 8, so he has momentum when he receives the ball. Initially Lampard deployed him as a centre-forward, later moving him to the left in order to accommodate Tammy Abraham. Abraham’s five goals and Werner’s four assists suggest it is working to a degree.

Yet the suspicion remains that somewhere out there lies an even neater solution, that a player of Werner’s bespoke gifts demands a bespoke approach, something more creative than simply giving him a rest and hoping he comes good.

Perhaps Werner is partially trapped in expectations. Signed in response to Lampard’s request for a proven goalscorer, his record suggested he would seamlessly fill that role. In fact, he is a far more complex player than that: a genuinely fascinating forward who defies easy categorisation. Not purely a poacher, not purely a creator, not purely a wide forward, but a puzzle: one that Lampard, an inexperienced coach still grappling with the riches at his disposal, is still trying to solve.

Let's try him at CF

straight up CF

use his pace to just BURN teams on the counter

keep it simple

surely he is capable of pressing as a CF

I am 100 million percent all in on him and Havertz

we just need to play them in the correct roles and system

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,920]

Taken off when we were chasing the match....and was probably the smartest thing Lamps did all day.

 

Unlike Havertz I think he has the quality to come good relatively quickly. Play him up top.

[killer1257 3,282]

I don't think Werner will do better as a CF without Ziyech. He needs a creative mastermind behind him. Mount clearly is not the answer. Kovacic also is not the answer.

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[Jase 43,479]

Werner has not been great but imagine criticizing a player when you overplay him, play him out of position and play him in a position where his strengths aren't maximized while his weaknesses get exposed.