Assessing Havertz and Arsenal's interest

How the German plays, where he would play, and looking at his time at Chelsea.

Arsenal want Kai Havertz, Kai Havertz wants Arsenal, and Chelsea want up to £70m to allow it to happen. Let’s take a look.

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With Declan Rice put to one side for a moment, the links to Kai Havertz make a lot of sense to me. He fits the Edu/Arteta/Arsenal 2023 checklist:

• Ability to play multiple positions ✅

• Combines technically talent and big physical frame ✅

• Instantly improves the squad ✅

• Premier League experience ✅

Sounds great, right? But a lot of fans are unsure, especially at the rumoured price. So here’s a look at what Kai Havertz can do, where Arsenal could use him, how things have actually gone at Chelsea and whether it’s a deal worth doing.

• What can he do?

First off, let’s talk about the German’s ability with the ball. He is technically superb.

Havertz has really clean control, his first touch is exceptional and he can twist and turn in tight spaces, escaping pressure with ease and consistently finding team-mates in space after baiting defenders into a challenge. If he is to join Arsenal and play in the position previously occupied by Granit Xhaka, his work around the penalty area against set defences will instantly be an enormous upgrade on having the Swiss in a similar role.

Tempting defenders in before playing the ball, something Havertz also does excellently as a lay-off with his first touch when he is back to goal, is something the German clearly feels very comfortable with and there are no real concerns to be had about his link-up play or his weight of pass.

Like much of his game, his ball carrying could be more aggressive. There’s something enchanting about the way he floats through situations but it is also what holds him back from being more dominant. Havertz isn’t known for his pace but he is no slouch and, with his impressive stride, has the acceleration to go with past defenders more often than he dares. He shows that when he’s isolated out wide and on the move, getting to the byline for a ball across goal, but it’s something he could do more. Likewise, for a player of his size he should probably seek contact more often. He has the size (and should have the strength, even if he doesn’t just yet) and the control to not just ride challenges better but invite them. A player who combines his size and technical ability should have more gravity.

You see his physical prowess in the air, where he is genuinely (and perhaps surprisingly) exceptional. He ranked higher than you’d believe in the Premier League for aerial duels won in 2022/23, as pointed out by Billy Carpenter (Edu’s BBQ) in his excellent breakdown of the player:

Havertz is #4 amongst all non-defenders in the Premier League in winning aerial duels. He has the highest win rate of that group.

The win ratio is truly surprising and even adjusting for minutes played you quickly see that these numbers aren’t inflated by Havertz shying away from duels.

In terms of how he fits into a team when he isn’t getting touches of the ball, Havertz understands and interprets space excellently and in a way that consistently benefits his team-mates. His manipulation of space is really, really good.

When there is no threat in behind he offers one, providing an option for a long pass or, more likely, space between the lines for a team-mate as he puts the opposition defence on the back foot. When team-mates make runs in behind, Havertz himself will make the counter-movement, drifting into those gaps looking for a ball into feet.

Havertz is at his best when a team-mate is playing ahead of him and he can arrive late for an attack, waiting for a cutback in the same way that saw Martin Ødegaard excel in 2022/23. I rewatched some of his Leverkusen appearances from 2018/19 for this piece and these movements — delaying a run forward so he could arrive later, in space, for a cutback — stuck out immediately.

“I used to say in Manchester that the last player to arrive to the box is the first one to be able to shoot,” ex-Pep Guardiola assistant Juanma Lillo said in a column for The Athletic last year. “I tell that to my strikers all the time: the closer you get to the goal, the further you are from scoring.”

That way of thinking suits Havertz down to the ground.

An expected goals underperformance for last season has been touted and I do wish a player this good would put his foot through the ball more often but he is even with xG across his career: this shouldn’t be another Gabriel Jesus situation, where you accept he’s a below par finisher because he’s so good at so many other things, in the long-term.

• Where could he play?

That brings us to the idea of Havertz at Arsenal and under Mikel Arteta. When Arsenal typically attack with five players across the frontline, you can imagine Havertz in three of them.

But that doesn’t mean there are only three positions he can play in. While it’s easiest to envisage how he lines up in any of the offensive central positions in a regular 4-3-3, he can also drift in from the right with an overlapping right-back to create the same attacking shape.

That is, in fact, exactly how he was used when he broke into the Bayer Leverkusen first team, with either Mitchell Weiser or Lars Bender playing at right-back but pushing upfield and allowing Havertz to roam. From here, Leverkusen got an extra body in midfield and it unlocked Havertz’ excellent ability to drift and link play and arrive late in the box unmarked.

It’s not out of the question that Arsenal add such a defender this summer and utilise the German in the same way but for now we can probably discount it.

Later at Leverkusen, with Julian Brandt moving to Dortmund, Havertz played centrally as a second striker. A ‘false 10’, if you like — using those counter-movements that come so inherently to act as the team’s main goal threat. Again, with wingers and a ‘false nine’ type striker, his ability to arrive late was perfect. And I think some of the misunderstanding of him as a player has come from that spell playing in a number 10 role, even if it wasn’t an orthodox one. Havertz has never been a team’s main creator in the way a classic number 10 is. He can link play and look for through balls but he’s much more of a finisher than a conductor. It’s the manipulation and use of space, not his ability to create for others, that is so valuable.

At Chelsea when he hasn’t been up front he has played in the same spaces as one of two number 10s. As we’ve seen in the modern game, a 5-2-2-1 will often attack and look the same as the 4-3-3 we’re used to under Arteta and that meant Havertz in the same areas in the ‘front five’ that you’d expect to see Martin Ødegaard in.

Though he’s never regularly played in the left half-space, that is where a bulk of potential minutes are for him at Arsenal as a Xhaka replacement. I think that’s perfectly suited for using the aerial ability Havertz possesses, as Arsenal used Xhaka last season, as a box threat. We know he can time his movements excellently and that he’s strong in the air.

I remember Arsène Wenger once saying Olivier Giroud was better heading crosses that came in from the right because the angles matched those when he was shooting across goal with his favoured left foot. Of the 32 goals Havertz has scored for Chelsea, seven have been headers from open play and six of those have been assisted by crosses from the right and spaces where Arsenal have Bukayo Saka and Martin Ødegaard stationed, looking to drift the ball in for a far post run. If a deal for Havertz is done and he ends up playing in midfield, this is one to look out for.

Interestingly, though Havertz has played plenty of his top flight minutes from the right or at least in the right channel, his open play league goals don’t show that — Arsenal moving him to that left central midfield position (or playing him up front) wouldn’t mean taking him away from where his goals come from.

As a potential striker, he fits what Mikel Arteta looks for from Gabriel Jesus, albeit with less ball-carrying. Looking at 2021/22 (when he was sometimes up front and Chelsea were fine) and 2022/23 (when he was almost always up front and Chelsea were terrible) there aren’t huge differences in his output and that of Jesus and how influential he is for Arsenal or indeed Roberto Firmino in Liverpool’s title-winning season, perhaps the best ever example of a false nine working seamlessly for an elite Premier League team.

Having that much of the ball and being asked to join in, create, and retain possession at the same time would not be too much of an ask.

There has been plenty of criticism aimed at Havertz, and Arsenal’s interest, because of his output for Chelsea. First off, he looks less clean technically but Thomas Müller is, for me, a comparable player and has also been an ineffective false nine when asked to play there for *ahem* an out-of-sorts German national team (familiar, much?) or at club level many moons ago.

The output question is a fair one, though, especially after Xhaka just managed seven goals and seven assists in a single Premier League campaign. Still, let’s not forget Havertz was playing for a Chelsea side that finished 12th. Instead of taking that single campaign, I’ve bunched together his three Premier League seasons, playing a range of positions for a team that averaged 61.7 points per season, and compared him to Xhaka, Ødegaard and Jesus in a season that saw Arsenal pick up 84 points.

Counting only xG recorded when those players are on the pitch, Havertz has carried a much heavier burden in Chelsea’s attack than Xhaka did and even higher than Ødegaard did for Arsenal last season. Jesus is clear there but keep in mind he played up front for a much better team, not sometimes up front and sometimes deeper for a poorer one.

Again, Havertz should be considered a goal threat who can create much more than a player who combines the two but I think, taken on the whole, his output is not as bad as many may think. His time in the Premier League at Chelsea averages out just shy of Ødegaard’s xG + xA for 2022/23 while carrying more of the burden in a worse team. Which brings me to …

• How much did he flop at Chelsea?

Chelsea bought Havertz based on his performances in a worse league for a team that has slightly worse finishes, usually, than Chelsea manage in the Premier League.

Yet they have relied on him, in the league and in Europe, more than Leverkusen ever did and his expected output has … been as good as it ever was.

Leverkusen were alright in the two years with Havertz in the side. Chelsea have been OK in one, pretty good in the middle, and downright dreadful in another.

We obviously get that impossible to answer question: were Chelsea bad because of Havertz or was he bad because of Chelsea?

Well, everyone at Chelsea has been bad and Kai Havertz has been not great in a terrible team who had three coaches — only two of them having ever done any half-decent job anywhere — in the space of a season. Nobody shone brightly. That doesn’t mean Chelsea don’t have excellent players capable of much, much, much more.

Based on the rest of Havertz’ career, I’m pretty glass half full on both whether or not he has actually been OK (not great) at Chelsea and whether he could explode in the right team and under the right coach.

• Does it make sense for Arsenal?

It’s a risk. It’s obviously a risk. Havertz may well be permanently damaged goods and Arsenal will be spending a lot of money to get this deal done.

But he does improve the squad, that goes without saying after depth cost us last season. He has the technical ability and physical potential to be world class, just as everyone just a few years ago imagined he would be in his mid-20s.

My questions are mental. Consistency, hunger, confidence, that kind of thing. But it’s hard to judge any of that. He certainly had the mentality to break into a team that regularly competes in Europe as a teenager. He broke every Bundesliga record for ‘youngest player to reach X goals’ for a good while. He scored in a Champions League final and has continues to impress in Europe since as well.

Havertz only just turned 24 and should still have over five years of world class football ahead of him if he puts everything together in a settled environment and in role(s) that suit him with team-mates who can deliver alongside him. Arsenal can provide all of those things. If a deal gets done, it’s easy to see why and it will be down to the player to determine how much of a success it ends up being.

It’s about how well he fits — and I think he fits very well — and Mikel Arteta finding the best way to get a consistent tune out of a 24-year-old who was considered one of the biggest young talents in Europe just two or three years ago. If this deal gets done, I would be really, really excited to see how it pans out.