Timo Werner : A Ticking Time Bomb?
Winning a Champions League trophy in the first year as player in a new club is not a feat many players can boast about. Timo Werner is not one of them. Moving from RB Leipzig to Chelsea for a fee of 53M Euros in 2020, Werner has been through quite a few ups and downs in his time at Chelsea. Made fun of a lot due to his misses in front of goal, he has come to use in other parts of the game, dropping deep and pressing smartly. An essential piece of Tuchel’s puzzle, he is getting more and more likely to get back to his older, better self.
Introduction
Born in March 6, 1996, the German striker came up through the TSV Steinhaldenfeld Youth, after which he joined Stuttgart for free in 2002/03. Coming through the ranks of Stuttgart, playing for the U-17’s, U-18’s and the senior team, he earned a 22M Euros transfer to RB Leipzig in 2016. He’s been quite phenomenal since then, flourishing under Julian Nagelsmann’s system in Leipzig. A left winger-striker (yeah I’ll call him that), Nagelsmann’s system was built around him, giving him much success. He was generally deployed as a left striker, mostly operating in the sidelines, waiting to receive the ball in dangerous spaces. Initially used as a number 9 in Lampard’s days, Werner didn’t see quite as much success, and was quite underwhelming to say the least. However, now, under Tuchel, he has been much more useful to the team, playing as a number 10 so that he can have more space for his runs down the middle. One of the quickest forwards in the world, Werner works most of his magic on the shoulder of the last defender. This however lead to a new problem- low blocks. As a solution, Werner started dropping deep against low blocks, allowing the full-backs, like Angelino, to overlap and invert. However, he works best in spaces. Also, his recent drain of goals has been fairly predictable for me, given his decision making in the past for Leipzig wasn’t too good either. That compared with low confidence and the pressure of a joining a club like Chelsea did what has been done. However, he seems to be slowly getting back on track.
Analysis
Werner’s problem against low blocks has been tackled effectively with his ability to drop down and varied movement, helping his lose his marker and bursting forward with the rest of the attack. Most of his work is done on the shoulder of the last defender, but he drops down when needed in central areas to create for others. This also makes him hard to be marked because defenders are confused whether he’s going to drop down or make runs.
Here, Werner slows down his speed to receive the ball in the midfield, allowing spaces to be created up ahead in the pitch. He then uses his speed to get into the spaces and ultimately scores.
When playing as a CF, he usually migrates towards the left side of the pitch, on the blind spot of the centre-back. When playing as a wide midfielder in the left, he operates on the shoulder of the right-back and utilizes his speed effectively.
Look, how he is running on the blind side of the right CB, giving him lots of time and spaces, running out the right back previously. This aspect of Werner really helps the team in a counter-attacking, given his speed.
In Chelsea, Werner has been played as a lone 9 against bigger teams, which could give him spaces to run into. Against smaller teams, thought, he is played as a wide left midfielder behind a striker. Just like in Leipzig, he comes towards the central areas allowing the wing-backs to overlap. This is what makes Tuchel’s 3 at the back system so effective, confusing opposition defender’s as to who to mark and who to not. He has also come in handy in counter-attacking situations, due to his speed.
As we can see from the viz, Werner has been pretty effective in terms of assists, but failed in front of the goal. Although he has a high npxG, his lacks of goals is clearly visible. Just like I said before, he isn’t as clinical and is very low on confidence.
His shooting lately just hasn’t been good enough, a lot of chances going begging quite frequently. He has a very low Goals/Shots ratio, and that is really disturbing.
As seen from the shot maps above, Werner likes to take shots from all sides of the pitch, and is a very high volume shooter too. Most of his goals, though, seem to come from central areas, and very few from wide spaces.
In terms of passes, Werner isn’t as good, although that can be attributed to his position and style of play. Most of his passes are quite straightforward, nothing out of the box.
Werner has a above-average number of crosses into the box, most of which are grounded. He is quite a agile and mobile player, with a high number of involvements in the opposition box.
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We can see that Werner is good at providing crosses/passes, most of them grounded. However, those are just basic passes and as I was saying, nothing extraordinary.
Now coming into Werner’s most effective strength, running into spaces.
Operating on the shoulder of the right back, Werner is always there to make a run. As in this case, he operates on the blind side of the right back, isolates himself and utilizes his speed to start his run, ultimately going on to score. He is always eager to make a run. However, this has a consequence.
With Werner being always eager to make run, he has been caught offside many a times. Sometimes, he becomes very stagnant during the passage of play, mostly during slow build-ups, waiting for the ball to come to him. Here, although the goal was given , you can see how he can’t adjust his position with respect to the defender.
Here, Werner starts his run between the two defenders, on the blind side of the centre-back. Once getting the ball, he uses his speed to ultimately go on and score. That pass though was really good, and this is exactly the type of passes Werner thrives for.
Given his position and role, Werner receives a high number of passes. He has a high number of carries into the box, and with his dropping down, he also has a high number of carries into the third.
As said before, Werner’s pace is utilized best when given space to run, or in counter-attacking situations. It allows to him to start deep and yet still outrun the defenders. His skill set isn’t much diverse, very limited to be honest, but he is quick and nimble with the ability to use his pace and leave defenders flat-footed.
Werner is very skilled at finding spaces, as in the above example. He starts deep, uses his pace, passes to the supporting player and gets into scoring positions. Another interesting observation is how he tries to not to shoot when making a run from the right side, but shoots when he makes run from the left and then either dribbles to shoot or cuts inside to shoot.
From the viz, it may appear that Werner doesn’t track back much defensively, but when in the game, he is definitely one of Chelsea’s most hardworking players, doing so much work to close the lines and force the opponents to make a error. That, sadly, cannot be demonstrated by stats, and has to be left to the “eye test”.
Conclusion
At the age of only 25, the already UCL winner Timo Werner is bound to get better. Although speed is his most important strength, he has shown quite a lot of improvement in other terms of his game too. However, if he really wants to be one of the best forwards in the world, he needs to work on his aerial presence and skill-set. With Lukaku coming in, he gets someone in the CF position to hold-up the play and allow him to make runs. Also, with Chilwell regaining form, he is likely to be more dangerous on the attack with an overlapping full-back. His role in slow build-up game though needs some improvement. Everything aside, I feel Timo Werner is someone with a huge potential and he has already started showing glimpses of it.
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