Chelsea attacker makes honest admission about his one big weakness amid poor record

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Timo Werner has opened up about his chronic offside problem after seeing his goal ruled out by VAR in the 2-1 win over Leicester City on Tuesday.

The 25-year-old has been caught offside 27 times in the Premier League this season (nine in the Champions League).

To put it into perspective, Ben Chilwell, who is surprisingly second on the list, has had eight offsides.

According to Werner himself, this is his one big weakness since he was young.

“Sometimes not, because otherwise, I wouldn’t be [caught] offside so often,” the Germany international jokingly told Stadium Astro when asked whether he could explain why he often found himself in offside positions.

“But yeah, that is the thing I’ve had since [I was] a little kid. That is my biggest problem, that I’m too often offside.”

Werner argued that he actually did not expect the pass from Mason Mount in the build-up to his offside goal.

“I wanted to be in the pole position in the middle for a tap-in, so I did not really concentrate on the pass through the gap from Mason,” he added.

“Maybe that was the problem.”

Chronicle view

From Chelsea’s point of view, the numbers are certainly frustrating.

After all, Werner is just two offside calls away from Alvaro Morata’s record of 29 offsides in 2017/18. The latter was heavily criticised for his poor positioning at the time.

But is it really that bad?

Obviously, there is room for improvement for Werner in terms of positioning.

But his record of 27 offsides this season is actually an improvement of 36 and 43 offsides he had in Bundesliga in 2018/19 and 2019/20, respectively.

Being caught offside is perhaps inevitable at times if you are a player who likes to be on the shoulder of the last defender such as Werner, particularly now in the age of VAR.

Jamie Vardy, for example — another well-known counter-attacking threat, has had 34 offsides so far this season.

Bear in mind, despite the offside goal, Werner stuck to his guns and eventually won the decisive penalty that secured the win over Leicester City.

Read also: Werner reacts to Stamford Bridge crowd’s singing his name in new chant during Leicester win