Interview ‘I will show Turbo Timo is good nickname for me’
Chelsea striker wastes no time getting up to speed with Premier League defenders – as well as the congestion charge
The London congestion charge caused Timo Werner confusion but, other than that, Chelsea’s new turbocharged striker feels settled and ready to give Premier League defenders the runaround.
Werner was born in Stuttgart, the home of car manufacturers Porsche and Mercedes-benz, and speed has always come naturally to him. He clocked 11.1 seconds for the 100 metres as a teenager.
Now aged 24, Werner believes he would be even faster over the distance and his speed of mind and movement were both on show during an encouraging Chelsea debut against Brighton, in which he won the penalty from which Jorginho opened the scoring.
The feeling inside Chelsea has been that of all the club’s summer signings, Werner is the one ready to hit the ground running and live up to his nickname.
And it would be a double blow for Liverpool if the German international opened his account against them tomorrow, given Chelsea beat the Premier League champions to the player dubbed “Turbo Timo”.
“Turbo Timo is not the worst nickname and, hopefully, I can show it suits me,” Werner said. “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 n create chances.”
While the speed came naturally, Werner’s r’s running and endurance were cultivated from an early ly age by his father, Gunther ther Schuh, who was a lower-league wer-league footballer and nd amateur coach. As well ell as having his son n running laps of the pitch itch that the team he coached ched played on, Schuh took Werner, r, who gets his surname from his mother, th out tt to th the hill hills t to work on speed and fitness.
“My dad always wanted me to be faster and he wanted to give me strength in my muscles,” Werner said. “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.”
Schuh also taught Werner to take goalscoring seriously from an early age, offering extra pocket money to spend on sweets for each time he hit the net.
“When I was nine or 10, we had a lot of tournaments,” Werner said. “For every goal, he didn’t give me much. It was for me to say, ‘OK, if I score 10 goals today I will have 10 euros.’ It can buy me a lot of candy. It made me want to score goals, and I love scoring goals.”
The financial incentives have steadily increased for Werner, whom Chelsea signed for £47.5 million from RB Leipzig, but some of his first Chelsea pay packets have been dented by the congestion charge. “I can speak English, but it is hard to read the bills,” Werner said. “You know, the letters when they come from the Westminster i t [C [Council], il] or th the G Government. It is very hard English and sometimes I give it to the staff here and they tell me what they want.”
Other than advising his German team-mate on moving to Chelsea, Antonio Rudiger has also helped with the bills, as Werner added: “Toni gave me some tips about the congestion charge. It was important he helped me, otherwise I would be getting a bill every day.”
Werner became Stuttgart’s youngest-ever scorer in the Bundesliga, aged 17 years, six months and 16 days, and left Leipzig as the club’s all-time leading scorer with 95 goals in 159 appearances. His new head coach, Frank Lampard, still holds the Chelsea scoring record, with 211, but Werner believes the time was right to move on.
“In Leipzig, I was the best I can be and I learnt a lot from the manager about the playing style,” Werner said. “It was time to move and I wanted to go to the Premier League, where there are a lot of massive, strong defenders. I want a new way to grow, to give my game some parts of English football.”