Werner went from most hated striker in Bundesliga to be jewel in Germany’s crown.

Previously linked to both Bayern Munich and Liverpool, Werner would be quite the swoop for Frank Lampard’s Blues, who will expect to shell out £54million to buy the diminutive striker out of his current contract.

Even in the post-coronavirus market, that may prove to be a modest sum for one of Europe’s most coveted goalscorers. Particularly for a goalscorer who, at 24, is only getting better.

It is sometimes easy to forget that Werner is still just a few months past his 24th birthday. In the seven years since he made his professional debut, the twinkle-toed striker has chalked up 88 Bundesliga goals, locked down a place in the national team, and transitioned from being a national hate figure to one of the most admired strikers in Europe. For such an apparently unassuming personality, it has been quite an eventful career so far.

‘I am just a normal schoolkid,’ announced a teenaged Werner with his gentle lisp when he emerged at VfB Stuttgart almost a decade ago.

On the pitch, however, he was anything but ordinary. Blessed with cartoonish acceleration and devastating finishing, he netted three times in his first ten games as the club’s youngest ever debutant.

Werner’s father Guenther Schuh had also been a professional striker, though with just a single goal in 21 second-tier games for the Stuttgarter Kickers, he was perhaps not the most glistening of idols for the youngster.

Instead, Werner looked up to Stuttgart legend Mario Gomez, announcing himself as Germany’s next great strike talent just as Gomez’s career began to fade.

‘Timo is unbelievably quick, has a brutal nose for goal and super finishing. He doesn’t hesitate, and he can score with his right foot, his left foot and his head,’ said Germany team-mate and Bayern star Joshua Kimmich last year.

Kimmich would know. A fellow Stuttgart academy graduate, he grew up alongside Werner from the age of 13, taking his A Levels at the same school and making the jump to Leipzig a few years earlier.

Yet while Kimmich was left to plough his own furrow in peace, Werner’s move east almost ruined his career. Having deified him as one of their own, the Stuttgart faithful never forgave him for leaving, particularly for Germany’s most hated club.

That distaste later spread like wildfire. After a blatant dive against Schalke in late 2016, anti-Werner songs filled German stadiums for months on end. Still only 21, the striker turned to a sports psychologist to help him.

‘He told me that I could silence everyone who doesn’t like me by doing just one thing: scoring,’ Werner later told Focus magazine.

And score he did. As the leading man in Ralph Hasenhuttl’s new-look Leipzig side, he led the nouveau-riche club to successive years in the Champions League and re-established himself as a player to be hailed, not vilified.

Since joining Leipzig in 2016, he has smashed in no less than 92 goals in all competitions. This season, he is hot on the heels of Robert Lewandowski in the race for the Bundesliga golden boot.

Though in some ways as bland as ever – he allegedly drives the same car he did when he was 18 and once shared a doner kebab with Besiktas fans after a Champions League game – Werner has become relentlessly sure of his own ability at Leipzig. Last season, he began openly flirting with Bayern, saying that they were ‘the only club in Germany’ he would consider moving to.

Yet the champions ultimately lost interest. As former schoolmate Kimmich has remarked in the past, Werner’s game is arguably more suited to Leipzig’s more direct, smash-and-grab style of football than Bayern’s method of smothering opponents.

In that sense, there is good reason to think he will fit right in at Chelsea. The departure of players such as Pedro and Willian will leave space for the German to flourish and play a leading role in a young team, just as he has done at Leipzig.

‘Werner can grow alongside the new generation at Chelsea,’ wrote Focus this week.

Rather than growing frustrated on the bench at Liverpool or Bayern, he has opted for game time under a coach who is ready to trust him. It would not be the first smart move that Timo Werner has made in his eventful career, and it may not be the last.

SOURCE:- allfootballapp