Timo Werner Is Too Onside

His disallowed goals are why Chelsea signed him.

The problem with Timo Werner is that he’s not offside enough.

No, for real. This is important.

By now even the guy Germans nicknamed Turbo knows that his blood feud with the assistant ref has made him a meme. “I think I have the most crossbar shots and offside goals in the league,” Werner said recently, citing a truthy stat that’s been making the rounds on social media. Last week he called this “the unluckiest season I ever had — that I will have, maybe.”

The thing about luck, though, is it’s not worth worrying about. Some of Werner’s struggles to stay onside are his fault, sure, and some of it’s just stuff that happens when you’re a human Sonic the Hedgehog speedrunning over the spikes of VAR. But these are exactly the risks Chelsea signed him to take, and if they’re going to get anything going against Manchester City in the Champions League final, Thomas Tuchel’s attack needs its striker to take more of that kind of risk, not less. Let’s run through the reasons why.

Werner’s right that his first season at Stamford Bridge was unlucky. The crossbar stat is real, sort of, although if you click deep enough into the Premier League’s website you’ll find his five shots off the woodwork pale in comparison to Harry Kane’s nine. Regardless, it’s been a rough year in front of goal. According to FBref’s Statsbomb data, no player in Europe’s top five leagues undershot his non-penalty expected goals by more than Werner. That’s given rise to an even more disturbing stat: Chelsea’s leading scorer in this Premier League campaign was the famously clinical striker Jorginho, with seven penalty goals.

Safe to say that’s not what Roman Abramović envisioned when he shelled out $190 million in transfer fees last summer for Werner, Kai Havertz, and Hakim Ziyech. Timo’s actually been the best of the three so far, but by earning the most minutes in this soggy compost heap of an attack he’s also taken the most heat. The internet has put its brightest minds on the case and diagnosed the problem: Werner might be a halfway decent player if only he understood the offside rule.

For some reason nobody was complaining about this problem last year, when Werner got caught offside more than anyone in the big five leagues. Maybe that’s because the only person who scored and assisted more non-penalty goals was some Argentine dude in Barcelona. Werner led Germany in offsides each of the two seasons before that; he also produced more non-pen goals and assists in that span than any Bundesliga player not named Robert Lewandowski. Chelsea knew what they were getting when they outbid Liverpool for Timo Werner. This guy has always been a walking (well, sprinting) offside flag. Everyone wanted him anyway.

What these clubs understand is that even though getting flagged for offside is annoying, it’s not really that big a deal. A soccer team will usually have somewhere around a hundred possessions per game. When the ball is in the middle third, those possessions are more or less worthless: an average team on the ball is about as likely to score as to turn the ball over and give up a goal. If you can zip a pass from midfield to a player running in behind the defense, those numbers get a lot sexier in a hurry. On the other hand, if the flag goes up and your opponent gets a free kick somewhere around the edge of its defensive third, that’s a roughly neutral outcome in terms of goal probabilities. Gambling against an offside trap gives an attack a baseline chance of breaking even and some small chance of winning big. That’s better than any game you’ll find at a casino.

The reason a team like Manchester City plays a high defensive line in spite of those odds is to compress the playing area, apply some pressure, and give themselves a better chance of winning the ball high. By keeping their center backs close to their defensive midfielders, City shrinks the vulnerable space between its lines, which Pep Guardiola is even more worried about defending than balls over the top. This season’s Man City is less pressy than years past, but they’re incredibly good at keeping opponents from getting behind them. In three Champions League knockout games against the scariest deep threats in the game, City gave up two shots to Erling Håland and zero to Kylian Mbappé. Neither player was caught offside — their teams couldn’t even get a good enough look to try.

Chelsea needs to break that pattern on Saturday. They haven’t been nearly as committed to looking for Werner over the top as his old team, RB Leipzig, and it’s showed. His shots per game are down more than 25% this year and his non-penalty expected goals have fallen off even harder without all the one-on-ones he used to enjoy thanks to Julian Nagelsmann’s lob first, ask questions later policy. Werner’s disappointing goal haul this season wasn’t just bad luck — it was also bad service. One of the fastest players in soccer is starving on one of its slowest attacks.

But the case for risking a few offside flags isn’t just about getting Timo better looks. It’s about opening up that space in front of City’s center backs. In Tuchel’s 3-4-3, Werner is the tip of the spear, working slightly ahead of the two inside forwards and giving them room between the lines. On the left, Mason Mount likes to drop into midfield and link play. Werner makes that easier with inside-out runs toward the left sideline, so that defenders on that side have to think long and hard about following Mount and leaving room for Timo over the top.

On the right, Tuchel plays a rangier forward — could be Kai Havertz in the final if he wants more control, or Christian Pulisic if he wants to lose a lot of balls and kick a lot of ass — to push up next to Werner and lead the charge. Behind the right forward, N’golo Kanté is always ready to turn on the ball and run at some defenders. The threat of Werner in the middle channels helps pin the center backs and make room in midfield for that to happen. If Chelsea wants City to take that threat seriously, it’d be a good idea to send some balls Werner’s way early and often.

Matter of fact, Chelsea has already shown us how this can work against Guardiola’s defense.  In the FA Cup semifinal — as close to a preview of this matchup as we’re going to get — Werner was constantly stretching play up the middle and slipping behind Rúben Dias on what will be John Stones’ side tomorrow. In the 55th minute, play swung to Chelsea’s left and Mount dropped into midfield as usual. Dias wanted to follow but dutifully checked his shoulder and saw Werner ready to make an inside-out run behind him. Dias stayed home and let Mount collect the ball unmarked between the lines. But that didn’t work either, because now Mount was dribbling downhill with two teammates in the channels. Mount released Werner in behind, Werner left Dias in the dust and squared to Ziyech, City's backup goalkeeper Zack Steffen momentarily forgot how space and time work, and Chelsea won, 1-0.

The play was no different from Werner’s disallowed goals except this time, thanks to Mount’s timing and the grace of VAR, he just wasn’t. And that’s why he has to keep making those runs. “It is one of his strengths to play on the edge,” Tuchel has said about Werner’s offside problem, “to give our opponent defenders always something to think about: how high the line is, how deep you have to drop because of his speed.”

Stones and Dias will have plenty to think about in Saturday's final. Werner will make those sideline runs over the top of Mount to make sure Kyle Walker stays home in his elbow back role. He’ll probe the central channel to give Kanté and company room to break through in midfield. If Werner’s lucky, maybe his teammates will release the ball quick enough to catch him, but even if he’s unlucky, living on that edge will buy Chelsea some room to breathe. As Filippo Inzaghi, the patron saint of disallowed goals, once put it: “Offside? Fuck off. I was onside. Too onside if anything.” ❧

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Further reading:

• Matt Law, Timo Werner exclusive: My confidence was gone but I will never hide (The Telegraph)
• Matt Debono, Thomas Tuchel Sends Message to Timo Werner Amid Offside Habit (SI)
• Sky Sports, "It's been the unluckiest season I've ever had!" | Timo Werner on his disallowed goals for Chelsea (YouTube)

Image: Bernat Klein, Autumn Trees