Chelsea have started the 2020-21 Premier League season on the right foot with a crucial if not exactly spectacular three points away at Brighton.
The Blues struggled in possession against the home side, but moments of individual quality were enough for us to score the goals that we needed. The first one of those involved Timo Werner brilliantly latching onto a through ball from Jorginho, showing his incredible pace to move the ball past the goalkeeper before getting clattered to win the penalty that Jorginho then converted to open the scoring.
Werner showed excellent work-rate throughout the game, despite picking up a knock in the aforementioned incident, and was only denied a couple of golden opportunities to score by the lack of a good final pass from his teammates. But certainly it was a good first impression from Chelsea’s new No.11.
Next up is a much tougher game, with Liverpool coming to the Bridge. Werner however is confident that Chelsea can get a substantial result, despite the obvious qualities of the opponents.
"I am looking forward to the game because you have a lot of good teams and with Liverpool, one of the best teams in the world.
"They won the league last year and they have the same team as last year, so they will be as strong as last year. So it will be a really good challenge for us to see how far we are. We had not so good a pre-season because a lot of players come from holiday, a lot of players didn’t play any games before our first game against Brighton, a lot of players couldn’t play, and that made it a little difficult to fight together but I think for this we did very well.
"We will improve game by game but now we have to play on Sunday and we try to win the game. We are playing against a strong team and they have such good players, not only Virgil van Dijk, the whole defending part of Liverpool are very good. They conceded the least goals in the league and it is a great team in every position.
"But we also have great players and we have the quality to beat them. It will be an interesting game."
Adding an extra layer to this weekend’s narrative, Liverpool were one of the big teams who had chased Werner for an entire year before Chelsea swooped in this summer to bring him to the Bridge. But Werner has no regrets about how all that played out, and is very much feeling at home at Chelsea already.
"When I decided to leave Leipzig I talked to different clubs, next to Chelsea but I don’t want to talk too much about other clubs because I decide on Chelsea because for me it was the best decision I can take.
"Not only because of the style of football but because of what they have shown to me. It was a hard decision but I am very excited and proud with what I decided and I am happy I decided like this.
"After one-and-a-half months here it feels right, it feels really good and the team is brilliant. We have some good but calm and nice players. We can do well with this team in the next few months and the next few years."
Lampard's "pull power" has been the talk of the town, since every new Chelsea signing has put the head coach as one of the main reasons for their decision to come to Chelsea.
And while it would be incorrect to give all the credit to Lampard — especially with Marina Granovskaia taking care of the financial aspect and Petr Čech facilitating the work behind the scenes between the two sides of the footballing operation — Lampard does deserve maximum credit for selling the project to the likes of Werner, and convincing the players that he is more than capable of executing the vision of the club on the football pitch.
"We had a lot of conversations. He texted me a lot, he sent me a lot of media where he could show me the style of football he wants to play.
"For me it was really important to know that when I come to a new club, because I loved playing for Leipzig and everything was well for me there. So it was really important to come to a team where I can have a vision that sits with my football. I think the whole Premier League sits very well with my style because it is so fast in the Premier League and the fast players have really good space to play well.
"It was really important that he gave me the feeling that the system he wants to play fits very well with me. Also the conversation was very important because he is a calm and very nice guy who makes it clear what he wants and what his style of football is, but also that you are not only a player to him, you are a person. Not a friend as you have the respectful relationship but he sees you as a person. That was really impressive for me and one of the reasons that I came here."
-Timo Werner; source: Chelsea FC
Chelsea's top four finish last season was good enough, given the circumstances of the transfer ban and Eden Hazard’s departure to Real Madrid, the arrival of a new manager with no top level managerial experience, and the reliance upon a host of young players from the Academy, but after the ambitious summer spending spree, results on the pitch must improve as well.
Werner is certainly ready to lead the line as we work towards those goals. He wants top honours and trophies, which is the correct attitude for the club indeed.
“To achieve at Chelsea I come here to win titles. Of course, Chelsea is a big club that wants to win. I am a player who wants to win every game. It is clear we want to win titles.
“In the last year we didn’t win so much but I think we have a strong and young team that can develop where we can have a long period together. We are young and want to win; it is a good way to reach what I want to. I came here to win and win titles and as many games as possible.
“Of course, a lot of German players played in the Premier League before. It wasn’t that I saw one and thought I wanted to play in the Premier League because of him. I wanted to come to the Premier League because it is the world’s best league.”
-Timo Werner; source: Goal
It's hard to not get excited, even though we may have to wait a little bit for all our new signings to be available and gelling together to mount a serious title challenge.
On to Liverpool!