"I came here to win titles," Timo Werner stated in the opening months of his Chelsea career following a £47million move from RB Leipzig the previous June.
Just over two years later Werner is set to return to Leipzig, his quick exit reflecting how his departure from the Bundesliga has unravelled. However, he will always have the Champions League title. If you put that story into isolation and pretty much block out his entire second season, then Werner succeeded at Stamford Bridge.
But if we are having a more blunt conversation in a summer where Todd Boehly is trying to address failings of the past: Werner is one of the worst value signings in the club's recent history.
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The only thing that hides the extent of this failure is Romelu Lukaku, who was bought for £97m and loaned back to Inter Milan under 12 months after the club broke their transfer record for him.
When you speak to fans about Werner, you will hear praise of his character and work rate, both commendable traits that you could accuse this dressing room of lacking in certain quarters, but certainly not enough to justify the sizeable wages paid for a player who should have been a leading source of goals.
The 89-day stretch between December and March last season, when Werner did not start a game in the Premier League, showcased the lack of trust in a forward amidst an underperforming attack.
Werner fits the mould of the expensive failure in attack that Chelsea fans have become frustratingly used to. The difference though with Werner comes from more basic shortcomings that at times were painful to watch. Compared to Alvaro Morata, psychology feels more defining in that failure. With Lukaku, a tactical confusion and a very public falling out.
Although we allegedly have reached the same point with Werner and Thomas Tuchel, few can suggest the forward was not given enough chances to prove himself, or there was more than enough evidence to suggest he did not have the capacity to offer enough to compete in the Premier League.
In the opening months of Tuchel's reign, Tammy Abraham was quickly dispensed whilst Werner was elevated, although the pair ended on the same number of goals, despite the latter playing 20 more times.
In neither season did Werner reach double figures in the Premier League, by the end of the 2021/22 campaign he had less than the disappointing six he reached by the end of his first.
Sure, there were the high points against Real Madrid in both seasons or his love for Southampton, netting five times against them across four appearances. But in far too many games (in harsh reality) the majority of them, Werner was rendered pretty ineffectual.
A lack of space nullified his speed, a lack of physicality forced him off the ball, and a lack of technical quality broke down many attacks.
It spoke to the imbalance in Chelsea's bloated wage structure that Werner was earning significantly more than Edouard Mendy, Mason Mount and Reece James. Three players whose consistency and output Werner could never rival.
Werner is not the only one to fall short of expectation, but having watched nearly all of his minutes in a Chelsea shirt since the summer of 2020, I struggle to think of many players over the years who cost that much and produced this little.
He will return to his old club in a league that stylistically suits him and will offer him the room to rediscover the confidence which clearly was drained in west London. There is no doubt in interviews and with fellow peers, he became a very likeable personality, one who added humour and positivity into the dressing room.
Auf Wiedersehen Timo, we'll always have Porto.
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