‘No hugs or warm words can help Werner’ – Tuchel says Chelsea star needs lucky break amid goal drought

The German head coach spoke out on a fellow countryman’s loss of form after the Blues’ win over Burnley

Timo Werner is in need of a lucky break amid an ongoing goal drought, according to Thomas Tuchel, who says “no warm words” or “hugs” can help the Chelsea star.

Werner extended his scoreless run in the Premier League to 12 matches after drawing a blank during Chelsea’s 2-0 win over Burnley on Sunday.

The Germany international squandered a number of good openings during the contest, which was only Tuchel’s second in the dugout since replacing Frank Lampard, with Cesar Azpilicueta and Marcos Alonso proving to be the match-winners for the hosts.

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Chelsea forked out £47.5 million ($65m) to sign Werner from RB Leipzig last summer, but a return of nine goals through his first 29 outings has seemingly not been good enough to justify such a high fee, with Tuchel now facing something of a selection dilemma.

The Blues heads coach admitted that he is not planning to put an arm around his fellow countryman after his latest subdued display, with the striker’s confidence unlikely to come back until fortune starts to smile more favourably upon him.

Tuchel said of Werner’s struggles post-match: “No talks, no hugs, no warm words can make up for this feeling. Maybe we need a stupid goal, a deflection or whatever for him.

“As long as the guys work, as long as the guys are reliable in their positions and in their work rate for the team, we will push them, there’s no doubt about it.”

Asked to assess his team’s performance against Burnley, Tuchel added: “I was very pleased again with the performance, it’s very important to have a win because it gives us a boost and it gives us the most confidence possible.

“It was a very, very good performance. We controlled the match completely, we never lost intensity and we never lost the focus or awareness.

“It should be a signal to our guys up front that we needed two defensive players to score. We lack in the moment precision in the last pass, precision in the last touch and the finishing, we will work on this.”

Chelsea will now turn their attention to a huge London derby clash away at Tottenham on Thursday, which they must win to stay within touch of the Champions League places.

The Blues are level on points with Spurs in seventh at the moment, but have played two games more, while reigning champions Liverpool are currently four points ahead of both teams in fourth.