Thomas Tuchel has compared Timo Werner's efforts to recapture his finest scoring form to a romantic pursuit after the striker came under fire for a horror miss on international duty with Germany in the week.
Werner scuffed a shot horribly wide with the goal at his mercy in Germany's World Cup clash with North Macedonia in the week. The game was tied at 1-1 at the time but North Macedonia went on to record a shock 2-1 victory.
Tuchel revealed that since Werner has returned to Chelsea, he has had to stop him working too hard at trying to get his touch back. It prompted him to an offer a bizarre analogy for his thinking.
'If a woman doesn’t want to go out with you, you cannot force her. Step back and maybe she will call you,' Tuchel said at his Friday press conference.
'It was a bad pass from Ilkay Gundogan is how I see it! I'm only joking. He missed that chance and everybody is passionate to talk about it which is a bit annoying.
'It's easy at the moment to point the finger at Timo, which I can't understand. I am happy he is back here.
'To look at it honestly, he is in a moment where he lacks confidence and things aren't too easy. The goals are not working out as usual but he works out for us.
'He still scores for us, still assists for us, still wins penalties. If this is the most critical point of his career you can say it's still pretty impressive so far.
'Timo has scored since he was five years old and he never stopped. So he can trust his brain and body, it will come back. That's easier said than done.
'Yesterday I sent him in from training because he wanted to do extra finishing with us. But I sent him in because it will come. The goals will come.
'Of course, he needs to do something and the best thing to do is to work hard. Work hard against the ball, make runs, don't hesitate, be fearless, don't overthink it.
'That's easy for me to say but it's the challenge right now. Timo will start tomorrow and there we go.'
Werner has scored 10 times for Chelsea in 39 appearances since making a £53million move from Red Bull Leipzig last summer.
But his recent form has signalled a particularly alarming slump with just two goals in his last 31 games for both club and country. His last strike was 11 games ago, in the 2-0 win over Newcastle on February 15.
Werner will bid to snap his current drought when Chelsea host West Brom in Saturday's early Premier League kick-off.
_lledox_
585
Timo's confidence has hit rock bottom, he has to take things slowly and handle this well and I really hope he comes back stronger and better because though I'm not a Chelsea fan I love this guy.
KehindeSeun
255
I can only see favour here by tuchel because the way he protect this flop he did not protect and give Werner game time he did not do it with two striker we have instead he force havert to play thief role, we all know havert is never a striker his an AM not CF.... All this formation tactics is because of this two german players and the other two to three players are suffering from it which I think is unfair because u don't have to divide the players u have to play according to every strikers ability.... he remove tammy in half time in some match which I find it difficult to understand that, accepted tammy was lost in that match because of the tactic's but what about Werner he was bad in so many half time and still yet he will still play the full 90m can someone tell me what is going on there ?..... I think all the players should be treated the same way because u can have 3 strikers in a team and u still force someone to play number 9. u can see the attacking is not clicking and is down to Werner... tuchel is just finding excuse for this guy by saying he needs is speed I don't get that when did speed now important to Goals, Tammy is scoring giroud too is scoring play this guys and live speed now the guy need some time to be on the bench playing him every match is killing him LAMPARD do this too and he cost him his job now u to find it difficult that the guy need brake. If u talk about speed pulisic is a speed star in that team so why his on bench because I find it difficult to understand why Werner is playing ahead of pulisic I don't know. let just day the truth here there is favoritism here.
Tieacimu
250
stop talking about Timo zebra funs see this