#18 - What is Kai Havertz doing?
A closer look at his performance against Manchester United
In this article I’ve re-watched his whole performance and taken a closer look at situations involving Kai Havertz, with the aim of seeing what he adds and what could come very soon, with better execution from both himself and his teammates. If you’re reading and haven’t subsribed, please do so below. It’s free and just one Arsenal email a week!
When you look at the cold hard data, Havertz is doing OK. He’s actually ahead of Granit Xhaka in a number of areas vs. last season.
It just feels like his errors are currently having maximum punishment, whilst his lack of confidence in front of goal is glaringly obvious, leading to perhaps distorted views on his overall performances. Enough has been made of those errors, so below I’m going to focus on the positives - though having rewatched his entire game, aside from the two obvious errors, Havertz does very little wrong.
Physical presence in midfield. An area Havertz has perhaps surpassed expectations so far is his defensive abilities and strength in duels. Less than one minute in against Manchester United he uses his body to shield off Eriksen and Lindelof, Martinelli then runs into the space created - Havertz finds him with a really nice lofted ball, Martinelli’s poor cross means this move ends in nothing.
It would be better if Havertz had followed his ball by bursting into the box to create another option for Martinelli or create more room for others. But, there’s still a lot of room here for Martinelli to pick out Odegaard, like he does perfectly for the goal later in the half.
Below we see another situation where Havertz has dropped deeper due to Rice moving forward, here Havertz wins the second ball, shields and passes it off to ensure we retain possession.
Again in the below clip, Havertz drops to around the halfway line to use his physical qualities and bail out Zinchenko who has just given the ball away. Havertz steals the ball off of Bruno Fernandes and subsequently launches a new wave of Arsenal attack.
Second striker runs. Playing in that left eight role we are seeing Havertz make the second striker run quite a lot, but he’s been rarely found yet. As seen in the shot below, whilst making this run creates an opening for a ball over the top, it also creates a huge amount of unmarked room for Martinelli on the left, as he’s drawn in the full back (Wan Bissaka). If Martinelli is found in this clip, Havertz would occupy Lindelof leaving Martinelli with running room and a likely 1v1 situation in the box.
14 minutes in Havertz makes a similar run when Odegaard is in a similar position.
Odegaard’s execution is poor as the ball neither finds Havertz run, or Martinelli, who would again be 1v1 with the full back.
In the below clip, Havertz sees a gap in the defence and makes a great run.
Saliba opts for Martinelli instead, which is probably the wrong choice, but there’s still a chance for Martinelli to find Havertz with a cushioned pass into the space. Sadly Martinelli’s execution is poor again and Havertz is not found.
Again in the second half Martinelli missed a big opportunity to play in Havertz (below). It’s clear that so far there’s a bit of lack of understanding on that left side between the two.
Another example of this lack of a relationship to date comes below. Havertz makes a very quick and aggressive run to overlap Martinelli.
Instead of finding Havertz, who would have momentum to take it into a great position, Martinelli cuts inside and the attack leads to nothing.
In the below example Havertz again finds himself in a good position between fullback and centre back. Casemiro has switched off and Lindelof has drifted, Havertz has found the gap on the shoulder and if Saliba can execute a lofted ball into the box Havertz could be in. Sadly the Frenchman scuffed his cross in this instance.
Having played lots of minutes as a striker in his time at Chelsea and for his country, you can see Havertz understands the movement of a striker and his ability to add this to the team, whilst starting from midfield, is something others competing for this role probably cannot.
Havertz is very good in the air and it feels like a matter of time before his teammates start to pick out these runs and Havertz either scores or assists with his head or by using his body to create an opportunity in the box.
Of course Havertz absolutely has to improve his execution. He stumbled upon a very presentable chance in the first half of the game against Manchester United and completely fluffed it. But this screams of a player without confidence. He of course can finish those chances and hopefully when things start coming together for him, we start to see the confident finisher we saw in Germany before his move to Chelsea.
So in summary, I can see why Mikel keeps picking Havertz ahead of others in that position. He brings lots of unique qualities and whilst his errors are being GIF’ed up and circulated all over the internet, there’s a lot of things Havertz is doing that Arteta will be really encouraged by.