Premier League legend Alan Shearer has urged struggling Chelsea striker Timo Werner to claim penalty duties in order to break his barren run in front of goal, while he has also encouraged him to put in extra work on the training pitch.
The German, a big-money summer signing from RB Leipzig, has failed to score in his last 11 appearances for the Blues in all competitions – a run of 775 minutes without a goal.
He was hauled off at half-time of Chelsea’s 3-1 defeat to Arsenal on Boxing Day and then subsequently left out of the starting XI that took on Aston Villa on Monday evening.
Werner has been guilty of missing a host of gilt-edged chances during his goal drought and Shearer believes he needs to go back to basics and hone his finishing, as well as requesting the next penalty Chelsea are awarded.
‘He can’t knock on the manager’s door and say he should be starting matches, because when you look at the chances he’s missing, he doesn’t deserve to,’ Shearer wrote in his column for The Athletic.
‘History suggests it’s not going to last and it can’t do, both for his sake and Frank Lampard’s sake. It has to change.
‘If I was Werner, I would be straining for the ball every time Chelsea are awarded a penalty.
‘It’s such a great opportunity to get up and running again. You’d be amazed what it does to you, that feeling of seeing the ball hit the net. You grow two feet taller instantly.
‘On the training pitch, I’d be doubling down on work. I would get someone to knock balls into me from little angles, just behind the goal.
‘I’d stand five or six yards out and just roll shots into an empty net. Maybe that sounds simplistic, but I’d do it time and time again, just to build my confidence up. Then I’d bring in a keeper — a first-teamer wouldn’t do it, so I’d rope in someone from the youth team — and do the same thing.
‘It’s about repetition, repetition, repetition. “Practice makes permanent,” as Sir Bobby Robson, my old manager at Newcastle United, used to say. The next time the ball comes to you in a match, that repetition kicks in.’
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