Arsenal FC’s social media department seemed anxious to sign Kai Havertz. The change of the German national player from London city rival FC Chelsea has been confirmed for a week. Nevertheless, the club persistently and to the displeasure of their own supporters refused to confirm the transfer for around 75 million euros. Chelsea paid roughly the same amount to Bayer Leverkusen in September 2020. Only on Wednesday evening did the club confirm the “long-term” deal with Havertz, when the Arsenal managers had delayed the announcement for so long that it had become almost obsolete – because their own communications division had previously made a gross blunder.
At midnight on Wednesday, a double feature with Havertz that had apparently been set too early suddenly popped up on the Arsenal app. The two videos, which show the attacking player on the cover in various poses in the Arsenal shirt, are unmistakably captioned: “Kai Havertz is a Gunner” and “First Interview – Kai Havertz”. Shortly after the posts were published, they were deleted again. But by then the news had already gone viral on the internet: Kai Havertz is now playing for Arsenal.
In the club video, Havertz says it is “very exciting” for him to join “such a wonderful club with such a great history”. He is the twelfth German overall at Arsenal Football Club, whose passion for footballers from Germany began long ago with the transfer of a certain Alberto Méndez. He was playing for the national division club 1. SC Feucht when Arsenal’s eternal coach Arsène Wenger surprisingly fell in love with him and brought him to London in 1997 for 600,000 Deutschmarks. The German Méndez was followed by goalkeeper Jens Lehmann, who won the championship unbeaten with the club in the 2003/04 season, as well as the DFB world champions Per Mertesacker, Lukas Podolski and Mesut Özil.
At Arsenal Havertz would like to mature from a cup to a championship player
Havertz cited the “family mentality of the team” as the reason for his decision. It may have recently stood in contrast to that in the bloated Chelsea team, which clearly missed out on participating in the Champions League after a very weak season. The internal turbulence in the Blues recently had an impact on Havertz’ performance. In his three years at Chelsea, the native of Aachen made 139 competitive appearances, scoring 32 goals and providing 15 assists. With his winning goals in the Champions League final in 2021 and the Club World Cup final in 2022, the 24-year-old became a cup player, but never really a championship player. Ultimately, he lacked consistency. At least he couldn’t fully meet the expectations – but the club, with its many changes (players, coaches, owners), didn’t meet its own demands either.
With the move from west to north London, Havertz is now looking to develop into a top player over the long term. It should be important for him to finally find a reasonably stable position on the field. At Chelsea, the versatile Havertz played all sorts of offensive roles: centre-forward, hanging forward, winger, playmaker. He was always respected by all coaches, but nobody knew exactly where to best use him. Sometimes Havertz just sat on the bench. He spent most of his time as a strong and occasionally retreating target player in attack, especially after the current FC Bayern coach Thomas Tuchel increasingly lost confidence in the center forwards Timo Werner and Romelu Lukaku. But Havertz lacked the accuracy to constantly solve this position. While Chelsea have despaired of Havertz’s lack of position at times, it looks like Arsenal are hiring him for exactly that reason.
Havertz is said to form an exciting playmaker duo with the Norwegian Ödegaard
In order to continue to challenge permanent champion Manchester City and to be able to cope with the new Champions League burden, Arsenal must increase the squad alternatives this summer. With the signing of Havertz, the club now covers several positions at once. Coach Mikel Arteta recently praised the German’s “talent and versatility”. In principle, he plans to use him as a half-left attacking midfielder, where he should replace Swiss Granit Xhaka, who is about to move to Leverkusen. Along with captain Martin Odegaard of the same age, Havertz would form one of the Premier League’s most exciting playmaking duos. The position presumably comes closest to his own preferences. The digital magazine The Athletic Havertz once said he was “more or less a midfielder”.
In addition to understanding the game, running strength and his smooth ball handling, Havertz’s resilience could also help the sometimes fragile Arsenal team. Contrary to what his reserved nature might suggest, he stands up to the tough tackles of the Premier League and knows how to handle the pressure. Arsenal FC lacked this resistance and mentality in the final phase of the past season.
Arsenal then confirmed the move on Wednesday evening without giving any details about the contract term. A few days ago, Havertz posted a picture of his Chelsea teammate Kepa’s wedding in Marbella on Instagram. It looked like a farewell photo. Palm trees can be seen in the background, which look strikingly similar to those in the Arsenal video.