Why Timo Werner may work better on the wing for Chelsea

Chelsea captured the greatest prize in club football. Kai Havertz buried the winning goal on the stroke of halftime, and at the conclusion of the seven minutes of added time, we all burst into cheers as the blues finally returned to the top of domestic football. However, some fans still found some things to critique with the Chelsea performance and one of those things is Timo Werner.

Timo Werner drives me insane because he’s so good at running away from everyone to create chances and if he could just hit the broadside of a barn he’d be one of the best strikers in Europe. Werner’s clinical edge has been subject to scrutiny all season long. He’s had a lackluster season in terms of putting the ball in the back of the net. While some of the sitters he’s missed have made a horror show reel, he’s shown a lot of promise.

In Germany, Werner was an annual 30 goal scorer. If he finds that finishing touch in England, it’s obvious how deadly he could be. Trying to produce that clinical edge is the difficult part here for Timo Werner and the Chelsea staff, if that’s the path they chose to take.

Something we saw under Frank Lampard was Werner playing on the wing a lot more. With the German playing wide with Havertz running through the middle, Chelsea has started to find success, and in the Champions League final, it worked wonders. It’s not an ideal solution, but Werner’s pace has been causing problems for the opposition it’s come up against.

Moving Timo Werner to the wing not only takes the pressure off the German’s scoring or lack thereof but keeps his deadly pace in the lineup when it’s clear he poses so many threats to the opposition with his speed and running in behind. His intelligent runs in behind are what generates the space for players like Kai Havertz and Mason Mount to thrive in. His finishing touch hasn’t been brilliant so far, but the rest of his game has been fantastic.

Playing Werner on the wings means his pace might be a little less effective when he comes up against really pacey fullbacks, like Kyle Walker or Hector Bellerin, but he’s able to drag players back and create space in midfield as I said earlier. While this does admit defeat with his shooting complications, it does mean that Chelsea can partner him with a different striker up top. At Leipzig, Werner played alongside Yussuf Poulsen, and having a strike partner may remove some of the pressure heaped on the back of Timo during the course of this season.

Is it a stretch to say that playing another striker alongside Timo Werner is instantly going to give him a burst of life? Oh, very much yes. If I was clutching at straws any harder, you could paint me out to be one of the three little pigs. Yet, it’s something we didn’t see either Thomas Tuchel or Frank Lampard deploy while at the club. We often saw the team lineup with three forwards, but usually, two of those forwards are wide players and don’t have the same effect as a secondary striker would.

It’s why when this drought for Timo Werner started, a lot of people called for Olivier Giroud to play alongside the speedy German. Both offer very different dynamics to the team, and the stereotypical “big man knocks the ball down for a little skill guy to score” very much comes to fruition in England and Wales. A lot of teams use this to help them avoid relegation when they don’t have the attacking power that clubs like Chelsea have.

While this is very unlikely to happen at a “Big Six” club, at least moving someone with the turbojets that Timo Werner has in his legs seems to be the most viable solution to this issue. Werner’s passing and creation are incredible. He misses a lot, admittedly, but how many chances does he create for himself? Can you blame him for wasting a chance if he makes it all himself? I’m not saying no, I’m just saying that perhaps the mounds of criticism dumped on him is unfair at times due to either just looking at small pieces, or missing the big picture.

I don’t know if playing Werner out wife is the right idea, hence I am not a Premier League manager. I apologize if that news is shocking, but it’s true. You run the risk of taking time away from young players like Callum Hudson-Odoi or Christian Pulisic when you play Werner out wide. Does it make sense to damage the amount of time those players spend in matches just to try and get the most out of Timo Werner? This is something that Thomas Tuchel will get to decide in the coming months leading up to the new season.