Timo Werner would like you to know that he’s sorry for not scoring more goals, including in the sense that if he had scored more goals, Frank Lampard could possibly still be in the job.
“When you come here to play as a striker and be the man to score the goals, of course I felt a little bit guilty that I missed so many chances. For the club, for the old manager but also for me because I want to score all the time and as much as I possibly can.
“Of course, if I’d scored four or five more goals maybe the old manager would still be here because we’d maybe have won two or three games more but you can’t look too much into the past because there are too many games ahead of us.”
-Timo Werner; source: Sky
Now, granted, players will generally only be able to talk about things that they are asked about, and the obvious thing to ask Werner about is his 100-day, nearly 1000-minute goal-drought that finally ended a few weeks ago against Newcastle United, but this is starting to reach somewhat parodic one-note levels.
Dance for us the dance of goals, meat popsicle!
The latest in this apology tour, following the above-quoted Sky Sports “exclusive” that had echoed on for a couple days (in England and Germany) earlier this week, is an interview with the BBC, for the latest episode of Football Focus set to air Saturday, which is being teased today.
“I never had [such a goal-drought] in my career before. You can always learn more from the bad situations. I learned to trust in myself, to give everything on the pitch, not only think about goals and fight for the team. Now I hope this period is gone and I score a few more goals until the end of the season.”
Despite his goal-drought, Werner has been directly involved in more goals than any other player on the team, both overall (10+9) and in the Premier League (5+8). And he’s also played more minutes than all but one other player on the team (Mason Mount), so clearly he must be doing something right for both of his coaches to continue picking him.
Hopefully that something will involve a few more goals however.
“A lot of good strikers come to the Premier League and take one year to settle down and adapt. I think my form is going up and getting better and better. Maybe this year is not the year of goal scoring for Timo but at the end I will reflect on the season.”
-Timo Werner; source: BBC
A bit sooner than next season would be ideal. Today, in fact.