Some signings just look like they are going to be fantastic so expectations are immediately raised, but Timo Werner’s time at Chelsea hasn’t gone to plan so far.
He demonstrated at RB Leipzig that he had the pace and ruthlessness in front of goal to take Chelsea to the next level, but he’s really started to struggle in recent weeks and it just looks like he needs a rest.
It’s possible that he’s the kind of player who needs to be confident to do well, but that confidence has deserted him and you can see that he’s unsure in his first touch and his decision making is suffering as he starts to second guess himself.
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Frank Lampard is also under pressure due to the loss against Arsenal so this is no time to carry a passenger in the team in the hope they play themselves back into form, and Julien Laurens has urged Lampard to leave him out against Aston Villa today in a piece for ESPN.
His reasoning comes down to that lack of confidence where he suggests that he just needs some time out of the team because he’s just completely out of form, and it’s an assessment that’s hard to argue with.
Villa are level on points with Chelsea and they have a couple of games in hand so they have to be taken seriously, so this is a game where Lampard simply needs to pick a starting XI that he can trust to get the job done.