Daily Express

MAN MOUNTAIN

- By Darren Lewis

Now Timo Werner, in his new role as Chelsea striker, is primed to come up against £ 75million man- mountain Virgil van Dijk.

Liverpool’s Dutch defender has made two mistakes leading to goals in his last four Premier Leagues games. In his previous 154 matches, Van Dijk was culpable just once.

It sets up a fascinatin­g subplot between the German speedster – who clocked 11.11 seconds for the 100 metres as a teenager – and the Anfield colossus, whose leadership was pivotal to their first title in 30 years last season.

“The last time I ran 11.1 I was 15 or 16 so hopefully I’m a bit faster,” said Werner. “My dad always wanted me to be faster and he wanted to give me strength in my muscles. He let me run up some hills and it helped me a lot. It taught me you have to work hard, and the strength and fitness in the games doesn’t come from doing nothing.

“It wasn’t the hills that gave me my speed, it was me thinking about how you have to train and work hard and be fit enough to go past defenders.”

Nicknamed ‘ Turbo’, Werner’s ability to leave defenders for dead helped him to amass 34 goals in 45 games last season for RB Leipzig. “I was a bit surprised but Turbo Timo is not the worst nickname,” he said. “Hopefully, I can show it suits me. Being fast is a really good thing for me because it gives me a lot of opportunit­ies in the game to score goals.

“It means I can create chances. It’s a nickname I can hold and maybe people can say Turbo Timo scores a lot of goals.

“It was the right time to say, ‘ OK I want to try something new, out of Germany. I want to

Van Dijk will be a formidable obstacle for Werner and his Blues team- mates

HE’S ONLY HUMAN: Van Dijk let his standards slip against Leeds go to the Premier League’.

“[ There are] a lot of massive, strong defenders. [ I want] to challenge the next time in my life because I made steps coming from Stuttgart. I got to the first team, then went to Leipzig, played for Leipzig for four years, played in the quarter- finals of the Champions League.

“This was a good experience and now I want a new way to grow, to give my game some parts of English football.

“When I get the strengths of English football I will get more possibilit­ies in my game or more options in my game to do different things.” Werner was courted by Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp before to his move to Stamford Bridge but this week he chose to pay tribute to another manager – his former Leipzig boss Julian Nagelsmann – for the improvemen­ts in his game that lifted him to the elite level.

“I don’t want to speak about other clubs,” he said. “But Nagelsmann gave me a lot of opportunit­ies and new ways to go in different situations when other teams stay deep and there is not so much space.”

Werner has come a long way since his father, Gunther, would agree to give him extra money if he scored goals as a child. Now it is Chelsea with the massive financial incentive to fill his boots in England and in Europe. “For every goal he didn’t give me much!” laughed Werner. “It was for me to say ‘ OK, if I score 10 goals today I will have 10 euros’.

“It could buy me a lot of candy. It was a joke with my dad. It made me want to score – and I love scoring goals.”

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