Thomas Tuchel has explained why he believes Timo Werner can thrive playing upfront alongside Romelu Lukaku at Chelsea this season.
Werner signed for Chelsea in a £47.5m deal from RB Leipzig last summer but struggled during an indifferent debut season, scoring just six league goals after netting 34 across all competitions for the Bundesliga side the season previous.
Chelsea moved to strengthen their centre-forward options with the £97.5m record signing of Lukaku from Inter Milan during the summer transfer window, though Tuchel believes the arrival of the Belgium international can be positive for Werner.
Werner has been restricted to just one minute of Premier League football across the past two fixtures but the German has discussed the prospect of the duo working in tandem, believing Lukaku can provide his teammate with physical ‘reference’ to work off in attack.
“I am sure that we will find games and solutions where we play with both of them (Timo Werner and Romelu Lukaku).” Tuchel told his pre-match press conference ahead of the Blues’ clash with Aston Villa tomorrow.
”We did already and Timo and Romelu can be a good fit together. Timo loves to play around a reference up front and Romelu is clearly our reference up front being a tall and physical player.
Werner has enjoyed a positive international break after scoring in each of Germany’s three fixtures during September’s World Cup qualifiers and Tuchel is hopeful the 25-year-old can take confidence from his performances for the national side.
“The most important is he finds his rhythm and confidence and joy and makes his point and makes his way into the team. The players are in charge to take their positions and fight for their positions and once they have it to not give it away.
“We are very happy that he scored and played (for Germany in the international break) and on we go. We have not too many players but we have players with high quality and high ambition and Timo is clearly a guy that we count on and that is absolutely necessary we have him on high level.”
