What Do We Expect From Werner?

This summer, Chelsea have made a number of high-profile signings after being on a transfer ban for the entirety of last season. They have brought in several new players who have shown their quality and will be integral to Chelsea’s success this season as well as roughly the next 5 seasons. Names such as Thiago Silva, Edouard Mendy, Hakim Ziyech and Ben Chilwell have all displayed the kind of output that Frank Lampard has been craving from his team.

Out of all the signings that Chelsea have made, there is none more in the spotlight than Timo Werner. Werner was purchased from RB Leipzig for a fee of £47.6 million (according to ESPN) in the summer, transfer window and since the transfer there have been high expectations for him. Frank Lampard has said that he was always impressed with Werner by not just his goal returns but also his versatility in the forward line.

Werner has been placed on the left-hand side of the attacking 3 for most of the season while occasionally playing through the middle. Lampard’s deployment of his new lethal finisher on the left has come as a surprise to some but it has produced many good returns for Chelsea. This move has allowed Werner to also show the Chelsea fans the different side to his game apart from goal scoring, however it can be said that there isn’t much to show in that respect at the moment.

Werner currently has 4 goals in the Premier League and is Chelsea’s top scorer in the league so far. He has scored one goal each against Burnley and Sheffield United and he had a multiple goal game against Southampton when he scored 2 in the first half of that game. He is averaging 1 goal every 2 games, which is not bad for a striker who is in his first 8 games of the Premier League season.

A huge problem for Werner is the weight of the expectations on his shoulders based on the strikers that were previously at the club. These strikers were all a major part of the identity of the club, with some contributing in more ways than others. These include the likes of Didier Drogba, Alvaro Morata, Diego Costa, and Fernando Torres to simply name a few.

Didier Drogba arrived at Chelsea in the summer of 2004 and Jose Mourinho had made him even more of a club favourite after reports had come out that Roman Abramovich, Chelsea’a owner, had said that he would buy Ronaldinho, with Mourinho famously replying that he wanted Drogba instead. Mourinho’s vision possibly exceeded his own expectations of Drogba as he went on to become the club’s 4^th highest goal scorer. What many people seem to forget is that Drogba did not have the best start to his career at Chelsea. In his first season at the club, he scored just 12 league goals and finished the season with just 16 goals in all competitions. Werner already has 8 goals in all competitions and we are not even through half of the season.

Werner’s doubters are a plenty and this is a result of the large expectations placed on strikers like Alvaro Morata and Fernando Torres, with the former being much more maligned. Morata’s start at Chelsea was blistering to say the least and there was a slight belief that he would live up to the hype. Unfortunately, Morata finished his first season with 11 league goals and 16 in all competitions, very similar to Drogba. Morata quickly faded away at Chelsea when his confidence seemed to have deserted him and was sent back to Atletico Madrid when it was clear that he was not the man for Chelsea. Morata was described as being good at getting in behind the defence and Werner provides Chelsea with a similar option. This is a reasonable comparison and the skepticism from fans is understandable.

Another Chelsea striker who fell below the expectations was Fernando Torres. At the time when Chelsea paid £50 million for the striker, he was already passed his best years after suffering a long-term, knee injury. Torres was always a fan favourite mostly because the fans wanted him to succeed. Torres had a torrid time at Chelsea and in his first full season he scored 6 goals in the league and a grand total of 7 in his first season and a half. However, to say Torres’s career at Chelsea was a failure would be misplaced since he was a crucial piece in Chelsea winning the Champions League in 2012 and the Europa League in 2013. In those 2 European campaigns, Torres started 15 games and scored 9 goals with 4 assists. One of the goals was his famous solo goal against Barcelona in the Champions League semi-final and another was the opening goal in the Europa League final. Werner has currently played 3 games for Chelsea in Europe and has 3 goals.

Werner’s biggest expectation from the fans would also come from the performances of Diego Costa in a Chelsea shirt, especially in the Premier League. Costa is a player that was described as being “made for the Premier League”. This is also a description that was given to Werner by many footballing experts. Costa was a different kind of player but looking at his scoring record he is very hard to keep up with, little alone to surpass. Costa signed for Chelsea in 2014 and scored on his first start against Burnley. The following three games saw him break the record of most goals scored in the first 4 games, by scoring 7 goals. The record was matched before this by Sergio Aguero. He went on to score 20 goals in the league that season and helped Chelsea win the title. Costa’s second, Premier League title-winning season also saw him score 20 goals. In both those seasons Costa came 3^rd and 4^th respectively in the goal scoring charts, but it cannot be argued that he did not have an influence on the game, apart from scoring goals.

Werner is a very different player from the strikers that have preceded him though it is true that the goal scoring records are comparable from his time at Leipzig. Werner does wear the number 11 shirt, which was the shirt number of Drogba. The comparisons will always be made between them. The former number 11’s at Chelsea also include players like Damien Duff and Pedro. Werner currently operates more similarly to both Pedro and Duff in this current Chelsea system under Lampard. He does start on the wing and would drift inside to create better chances for himself and his teammates. 

The other thing that should be considered about Werner is that at Leipzig, it can be said that the team was built for him to thrive. If Werner was able to score, then there was a good chance that Leipzig would win the game. It is quite different at Chelsea for Werner since the team is not built for him, nor can it be said that it is built to get the best out of any player at this time. Lampard has them functioning as a team and his comments about Werner being versatile do suggest that he is important for the team and that it is not built for him to score at will. Werner is still scoring at a decent rate even though the tactics aren’t geared towards allowing him to score.

Werner does come in for criticism at times but not for his scoring. The strikers that have been described before, except for Morata, can be said to have imposed themselves at important times in big games. Costa is a good example since he was a defender’s nightmare and did play a big role in moving around the defense for Hazard to thrive. Torres to a lesser extent did this as well but his contributions in Europe were always notable, especially for those 2 title-winning seasons. 

Drogba is renowned as the big game player and even without the ball his presence was felt not only by the team but also by the fans looking on. Werner is culpable of drifting out of the game and being very quiet at times. He is not a player that deserves the tag of just being a scorer but based on his performances so far there is a case to be made. If he is going to meet the high expectations that fans and rival fans have of him, this is definitely an aspect of his game he needs to work on. He still is only 24 years old and this can still come out better, even next season.

Werner does have a smaller price tag than some of the biggest strikers in the world however the expectations do remain high. He is a young player and he has both the potential and the athleticism to meet those expectations. It is not cause for worry for any Chelsea supporter since he is showing that he is adapting to the English game and improving every week that he plays. There is a chance that we may not see Werner at his goal-scoring best but this may be a new version of him that can be an effective tool in bringing success to Stamford Bridge.