Thomas Tuchel has told Timo Werner he needs to cheer up more if he is to put back into the Chelsea starting line-up. The new Chelsea manager has had just three training sessions to assess his new staff but has quickly come to the conclusion that the £45m Germany international is too far down in the dumps after scoring just one FA Cup goal against Morecambe in his last 16 games.
Since he sacking of Frank Lampard on Monday there has scarcely been time for Tuchel to fine-tune his thoughts over selection and he admitted to a fairly arbitrary starting line-up for the game against Wolves.
However, with Callum Hudson-Odoi providing one of the better performances together with impressive cameos from Tammy Abraham and Mason Mount, there may again only be room for him on the bench when Burnley come to Stamford Bridge tomorrow.
One of Tuchel's main challenges when he was appointed was to get goals out of his more expensive assets, but he is employing a long-terrm strategy as far as Werner was concerned.
“Why did I not use him on Wednesday? I see his face is a bit closed and the weight is on his shoulders,” Tuchel explained. “He cares a lot and that shows he has a fantastic character.
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Tuchel is hopeful, too, that by spending time working on a new attacking philosophy at the training ground, he can find a system that helps make that process easier for that process to occur.
“From his profile, I would say he prefers to have space,” he said.
"That’s clear because he’s super-fast and he likes to play in the last line, very very very high up, but a little bit more to the left, half open to the goal and to receive the balls into the open space. This is a given.
“Can we develop movements, patterns, behaviour to use his quality in narrow spaces? That’s my job and I’m absolutely convinced we can because the guy is open, the guy is friendly and the guy is eager to learn.
Timo Werner has not scored in 11 Premier League matches (Image: GETTY)
There will be games – on Wednesday we had 80 per cent ball possession – and it felt like we played 90 per cent of the match in the last 30 metres.
“But there are movements to create with him that he can help us, I am sure.”