Chelsea have suffered an embarrassing 4-1 loss at the hands of Brentford in the Premier League and once again Timo Werner failed to impress.
Tuchel chose to use Werner ahead of Romelu Lukaku but the German’s selection had raised several doubts even before the match had started. Paul Merson was one of the pundits who publicly questioned his selection on Saturday.
Merson had said before the match: “If Werner is not there, I’m not being horrible, but it won’t make much difference. He hasn’t fulfiled his potential, or he hasn’t come with what is expected at Chelsea. The way he was playing at Leipzig, he was a different player. I think playing in the pandemic didn’t help anybody. I don’t think he’s recovered from that.”
Timo Werner lasted 64 minutes on the pitch and it’s fair to say that the forward had another pathetic outing. He had an xG of just 010 and managed a mere 35 touches of the ball.
ESPN’s Steve Nicol came out to slam Werner’s contribution on Saturday as he managed only one shot on target in the 64 minutes.
“I guess the more worrying for me is the fact that going forward they’re not putting the ball in the back of the net the way they should be… Timo Werner gets a start and again just doesn’t produce,” Nicol told ESPN.
🇩🇪 Timo Werner v. Brentford
• 0 successful dribbles
• 0 chances created
• 0 shots on target
• 0 accurate crosses
• 0 ground duels won
• 0 fouls won
• 2 key passes
• 11x possession lost
• 0% take-on success (0/2)
• 0% shooting accuracy (0/1)Cardio 🏃♂️ pic.twitter.com/RuLdGpaFqm
— Matchday365 (@Matchday365) April 2, 2022
Should Timo Werner get a start against Real Madrid?
Chelsea’s next match is against Real Madrid in the Champions League and there’s no way a player who’s scored only one Premier League goal this season should face the Los Blancos. But then, his alternative is Romelu Lukaku and the Belgian has been an equal if not a bigger disappointment.
Lukaku has massively fallen down the pecking order and right now, it’s Kai Havertz who’s playing through the middle. The Belgian has scored only four goals this calendar year, out of which two have been in the FIFA Club World Cup.
Timo Werner was bought by Chelsea as a centre-forward but now his best role seems to be that of a winger and against Madrid too, he should get the same role.
If Tuchel shifts to a 3-4-2-1 formation then Timo Werner will be promptly shifted to the bench as Mason Mount and Hakim Ziyech will operate as the two link players but if the manager goes with a 4-3-3 again then Werner is likely to hold onto his spot.
Werner and Lukaku have both been poor this season but the former at least provides some pace on the counter-attack and this could turn out to be a major deciding factor at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday.