Timo Werner explains reasons behind Chelsea exit
RB Leipzig forward Timo Werner has lifted the lid on his Chelsea exit, claiming that he was ‘forgotten’ by former manager Thomas Tuchel.
The 26-year-old took the giant step in his career after enjoying a breathtaking 28-goal season in the Bundesliga. He was snapped up by Chelsea for £47.5 million and went on to score 12 goals and record 15 assists across 52 appearances in all competitions.
That’s over a goal contribution every two matches. But merely six goals in the Premier League led to the board believing they needed a striker while Werner could move to the left-side of the front line.
In came Romelu Lukaku and we all know how that panned out on and off the field. The Belgian was loaned out to Inter Milan, while Werner decided to return home.
Speaking ahead of Leipzig’s high-voltage clash at home to Manchester City, the club he won the Champions League against, Werner said “I had a very good first six months at Chelsea, which was what the supporters and club expected of me. I scored the goals and played good games.”
He continued, arguing his treatment by Tuchel was unfair, “When you come from the kind of success I had in Germany or with Chelsea — playing nearly every game in the first season, winning the Champions League in 2021, scoring in the semi-final against Real Madrid, making a lot of goals. Then all this gets a little bit forgotten by the manager, it was not really fair.”
He further added: “That was also a reason I had to move back to Leipzig, to get the enjoyment again. I didn’t feel that any more but you need it to be successful. Maybe yes, in the end I just wanted out.”
Werner’s intermittent scoring in his debut season resulted in the sharpshooter being limited to just 21 Premier League appearances. Scoring merely four goals during that time didn’t help his cause either, primarily because Tuchel viewed him as a wider player, who, owing to his pace and finesse, could run at wing-backs as well as bypass back lines on the counter.
“The biggest problem was he [Tuchel] put a striker like Lukaku in front of me in the second season after I won the Champions League by nearly playing every game in the first squad. That was the toughest moment for me to get a player, a very good player, in front of me for €120m. Romelu was a big striker and had to play after costing so much and I didn’t feel honoured enough. Maybe that was also a reason why I had ups and downs,” Werner concluded, testifying the above.
Regardless, for his never-say-die attitude and memorable goals in his first season in England, Werner is fondly remembered among the Chelsea fanbase.
The striker, who has already notched as many goals as he did last term (11), will be lining up against Eintracht Frankfurt on Saturday February 25th.
-Akarshak Roy
Twitter: @RoyAkarshak
Photo: Oleg Bkhambri. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.