Former Chelsea striker Timo Werner was victorious against Manchester City in the Champions League during his outing with the West London side and he wants to achieve that feat once again with German side RB Leipzig.
Timo Werner was in the 2020/21 Chelsea side that stopped Manchester City from winning the UEFA Champions League title.
The German footballer recently talked about his travail in Chelsea and he also took a jibe at his former manager, Thomas Tuchel for not remembering his previous track record.
Leaving Chelsea last summer has offered Werner an avenue to get back into reckoning and into his flourishing former self.
Werner left The Blues after a two-year stay with the West London side and the 26-year-old striker has returned to the Bundesliga full of life and energy.
Werner speaking about his time at Chelsea
Timo Werner speaking before the UEFA Champions League encounter against Manchester City on Wednesday 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.
“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.
“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.
“In the end a manager likes some players more than others — it’s completely normal and you have to accept that.
“Maybe yes, in the end I just wanted out.”
The German forward started in the frontline as Chelsea defeated Manchester City in Lisbon, Portugal to win the UEFA Champions League in May 2021.
However, Romelu Lukaku’s £97.5million move from Italy just three months following that Champions League triumph left him doubting countryman Tuchel’s trust in him.
Timo Werner added: “The biggest problem was he 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 120 million euros.
“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 stats at Chelsea:
Timo Werner scored twenty-three (23) goals in eighty-nine (89) appearances for The Blues.
He was the most potent force in the Champions League as he scored eight (8) in seventeen (17) appearances across two campaigns.
His low turn out in all competitions could have looked different had he not had an outrageous thirty-eight (38) goals removed for offside.
Timo Werner joined The Blues in 2020 when Frank Lampard was still the gaffer of the side and Timo Werner has expressed that he felt unfairly treated by Thomas Tuchel, Lampard’s successor.
Although after one-and-half years with the German tactician, Werner insists there is no hate between him and Tuchel.
“The manager who brought me in Lampard was sacked a few months later which was not the best for a player who joined the club after talking to this manager.
“In the end I missed some chances and was unlucky with VAR decisions.
“You could see my confidence dropped.
“From the outside it was easy to scapegoat me, whether that was from the media or coaches, whatever.
“But at least the fans were always behind me, they supported me. I can’t say anything against them.”
Moving to London in the middle of the Covid-19 crisis was also a factor given the forced isolation on the then-24-year-old player.
Timo Werner continued: “In the first months, nothing was open, I was always sitting at home, spent Christmas and New Year’s Eve alone, to be always on games, of course that was tough.
“Maybe you can say that was one of the reasons it didn’t work for me.
“Maybe with a proper life, friends and family around me it would have been different.
“It’s easy to point the fingers on those things, it is what it is now.”
Timo Werner almost joined Liverpool before Chelsea came knocking on the door
Timo Werner was touted to join Liverpool before he made that switch to the blues due to how Jurgen Klopp relished the prospect of bringing the German to Merseyside.
When questioned if he would have loved to have made a move to Merseyside instead of Chelsea, Werner said: “It’s hard to say, the door was never really closed in those two years before I joined Chelsea.
“At the time there were a lot of points that didn’t make my move to Liverpool happen.
“Covid was a big thing, a lot of clubs were unable to spend money while Chelsea were able to go all-in for players.
“But to regret something? It’s too late.”
Timo Werner has since scored eleven (11) goals in twenty-three (23) appearances since moving back to RB Leipzig in the summer of 2022.
