Timo Werner is a goal scorer – of that there is no doubt, but what kind of goal scorer is he? He definitely isn’t of the Giroud mould of a forward, nor is he a finisher with deadly precision like Sergio Aguero. He missed loads of chances, and yet he finished the 2019-20 season with 28 league goals.
It is generally understood now that Werner is a streaky striker, but how exactly does he perform in his lean patches? Looking at his lean patches in 2019-20 (from Bayern Munich at home to Freiburg away and from Frankfurt away to Werder Bremen at home), in 10 league games across two lean patches, he scored just two goals! From the graphic below (2019 refers to the 2019-20 season with Leipzig and 2020 refers to the 2020-21 season with Chelsea), it can clearly be seen that he had his share of chances and was failing to convert them.
Looking deeper into the numbers, removing the matches that were part of his lean patches, he had an xG per game of 0.87, which is an excellent number compared to an xG per game of 0.42 in his lean patches, which is also a very good number that will, with excellent finishing blow up the goals scored, case in point being the 2016-17 season of Romelu Lukaku when he scored 25 league goals for Everton with an xG per game of 0.46, with an overall xG overperformance of 8.33.
At Chelsea, from the game against Newcastle to the one last week against West Ham United, Werner has an xG per game of 0.52 which is good, with the eye test and the data clearly saying that he’s missed a bunch of good chances in the past few weeks.
So clearly, Werner is someone who needs many chances to score, but the reason why he still is extremely valuable is that despite this streakiness and occasional wasteful finishing, he still finished with 4 goals more than his expected tally last season. More than that, he is still only 24. If Frank Lampard and his coaching staff can mould him into a better, more well-rounded finisher, he can absolutely explode, given his ability to fashion high-quality opportunities for himself.
But from the eye test, many would agree that apart from missing several chances, his general play has been of poor quality recently. Again, comparing his lean patches with the remaining games of the 2019-20 season, his xG chain drops from 1.24 to 0.76 and his expected assists also drops from 0.32 to 0.22. This is definitely something he can improve on. I recall Thiago Silva going mad at him towards the end of the Wolves game when he was giving away the ball and not making simple passes, and that habit is something that must be coached out of him- whether it is due to tiredness or lapses in concentration.
Werner has also been making some excellent runs, and his teammates are unable to find him a lot of the time. When they do find him, like Pulisic did against West Ham, it is to his feet, instead of in front of him for him to run into which is the way he prefers it looking at his goals at Leipzig. This issue should solve itself with time once the team develops better chemistry. Once his teammates start finding him more often, his xG and his goals tally will also increase and reach the levels at Leipzig.
In sum, Werner definitely needs to be given more time. He has an elite ability to get into good positions in front of goal. But he has also played almost every single game, and tiredness is surely playing a role in his recent poor form. With time, once better chemistry develops within the team, and with the excellent coaching that Lampard and his team are sure to provide, Werner can explode and guide Chelsea to many trophies.
All data was obtained courtesy of Understat.
