Former German international and Chelsea winger Timo Werner has opened up on the psychological toll of his tumultuous spell in English football, revealing how a staggering run of 16 disallowed goals stripped away his confidence and derailed his Premier League rise.

When Werner arrived at Stamford Bridge in the summer of 2020, after Frank Lampard’s side hijacked Liverpool’s deal for the forward heralded as one of Europe’s most lethal transition threats.

Yet despite lifting the UEFA Champions League in his debut campaign under Thomas Tuchel, the German’s time in West London became defined by micro-margin VAR offside calls and agonising near-misses.

Toll of 16 disallowed goals

“Even though I won the Champions League, my first year was difficult,” Werner admitted. “If I’m not mistaken, I had 16 goals disallowed that season. Sometimes the offside was obvious, and I accepted it. But for half of them, I wasn’t even offside. They would spend five minutes looking for something, and eventually they would find it,” he said during an appearance on the Late Run podcast.

The unrelenting frustration of seeing his name wiped off the scoresheet weekend after weekend took a severe toll on his mindset, eventually spilling into his open-play finishing.

“You feel like goals are being taken away from you again and again,” he reflected. “Your energy drops, your confidence drops. Then you start missing chances, one after another. That’s the worst thing that can happen to a striker.”

Beyond the VAR controversies, Werner also questioned whether Chelsea’s tactical setup suited his natural traits, speculating that moving to Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool—where he was originally targeted—might have yielded a completely different career trajectory.

“Maybe Chelsea’s style wasn’t suitable for me, and if I had moved to Liverpool, things might have been better for me,” Werner noted. “Maybe it wasn’t the right style for me, but it was the right style for our team at the time. You always have to ask yourself: Is it good for me or for the team? It was good for the team, but maybe not the best for me. If I had played for Liverpool or another team, maybe I would have had more opportunities to attack on the counter.”

Failed comeback

Werner observed that Tuchel’s Blues were built for knockout football rather than sustained league dominance, often grinding against low-block defences while transforming into a lethal unit against Europe’s elite.

After returning to RB Leipzig, Werner made a second Premier League comeback via a loan spell at Tottenham Hotspur but struggled to make a lasting impact under Ange Postecoglou—leaving his initial, star-crossed debut season at Chelsea as a compelling ‘what if’ in modern Premier League history.