Saturday’s late strike against Brighton, his fourth goal in six matches, provided further evidence that Kai Havertz is finding his feet as an Arsenal player.
Arriving for £62 million off the back of a difficult season at Chelsea, he looked out of sorts in the early weeks leading plenty to question his best position on the pitch and whether he represented an upgrade on predecessor Granit Xhaka.
While it’s too early to suggest he’s allayed all concerns, he certainly appears to be playing with a spring in his step after a month of telling contributions for the Gunners.
All the same, having not paid attention to his critics, he’s now not getting carried away with the hype.
“Every footballer probably feels more comfortable on the pitch when everyone is praising him, everyone is screaming his name and everyone thinks he’s great,” he told Sky Sports Germany.
“Of course I also think that this is easier. But I now know that this is not reality. That you’re the hero one weekend and the idiot the next – I think we know that enough by now.”
“Of course it wasn’t my best time, I’ll be honest and I can get a lot more out of myself,” he added.
“My self-confidence suffered a bit from time to time. Nevertheless, I believe that I am now so strong that I can work my way out of such depths.
“You can’t please everyone anyway. Sometimes they like you, sometimes they don’t like you – and I accept that. As long as the people around me are happy with me, that’s enough for me.”
Manager Mikel Arteta certainly wouldn’t hear a bad word about Havertz as he settled into his new surroundings.
“I tell you what I feel about him, that I love him, that I see his qualities every single day in training,” he said in September.
A month later, he added: “We try to help him as much as possible. Be next to him, give him the tools, give him the confidence and give him the minutes to exploit his talent.”
Unsurprisingly, having such enduring support from those around him really struck a chord with the player.
“It was made clear to me from the beginning that everyone would give me the time to fit in well. And that just made me feel good,” he said.
“Even after two or three bad games, the coach came to me and said: ‘Hey, everything is fine, soon something will click and then it will happen.’ And then the moment came.
“I think now people in general just have to understand that I’m someone who puts his ego aside and will play for a team and in a position as needed. When I play, I give it my all, no matter where. And I also think that I understand the game quite well, so I can fill many positions.”
__
For more on Havertz, check out Granit Xhaka’s words of support here.
Mikel saw something we all didn’t and that’s why he is where he is. Pure genius! Excited to see how Havertz career with us pans out. Him and Jesus seem to have a good balance between them.
Well, some of us saw it, too! 😉
But so glad he feels at home and the team is playing well.
I must say, the fact he’s ex Chelsea just makes everything 1000% sweeter. Not Lampard nor Tuchel nor Potter could get a tune out of Kai so those plastic twats made the assumption he must be shit. It just shows how superior Arteta is as a manager. To see a player massively struggling and understand how to use him to get the absolute best out of him is a stroke of sheer genius. No one outside of Arsenal FC will admit this. But Arteta is in the top 3 managers on the planet right now. I literally wouldn’t swap him… Read more »
Seconded
To be fair Tuchel did win the CL final with Kai scoring the winning goal. But that even shows Chelsea’s complete ineptitude even further, their lack of patience with managers is their ruin, they let go of a perfectly good manager and the resulting instability has ruined the form and confidence of so many of their 60-120mil buys
He did. But Tuchel still didn’t get anywhere near the best out of him.
And (hate to be that guy) but the goal Havertz scored in the CL final is so fricking lucky. If you watch it closely, the touch from Ederson slows the ball right down.
Otherwise Havertz is looking pretty darn silly as the ball goes out for a goal kick.
Their lack of patience with managers didn’t use to matter. The new manager would win the league within a couple of years in large part because Chelsea’s financial advantage over almost everyone else (barring Man United) was so huge. Now, Abramovich and his willingness to lose 100 million (and disguise it) every year are gone. City and Newcastle are owned by nation-states. Arsenal have paid off our stadium, Spurs are far richer. Add to this the combination of ignorance and arrogance of their new owners and it will take several years before Chelsea become a regular challenger for Champions League… Read more »
I think the biggest change MA has achieved is the turnaround in the behaviour of the fanbase. There were times where I almost despised watching us over the decade prior to MA coming in – Chelsea and United fans are in that mindset currently. If you have a fanbase who are going into each game expecting disappointment, then believe, they will find a way to be disappointed. These days I can’t wait to watch us play – even if we lose I just think oh well, it was only one game and we’ll come good next one.. It is about… Read more »
The Havertz (at Chelsea) interview where he is asked about his best mate on the squad or whatever and says Jorginho, only to be told Jorginho had just left for Arsenal…
I may be overstating how that event occurred, but it is something like that. I don’t think we can deny both that Jorginho leaving negatively affected Kai while still at Chelsea and that us having Jorginho helped us with getting and (more so) integrating Kai.
Google Jorginho wedding and look at the first image that comes up (the wedding was summer 2023 shortly before KH joined us)
It was actually Kepas wedding – but the photos are still telling
Was that really only 10mil for Jorgi? Man what a bargain, had it in my head it was 20mil which still would’ve been a pretty good price for a player of his pedigree, experience and intelligence who can still contribute on the pitch too. It makes me laugh so much now thinking about the vitriol I saw online on that deadline day when we signed him. The guy is pure class, and the simple reason we have him (and Kai) is that Chelsea don’t deserve to. And fully agree about fan attitude, I find myself mostly enjoying even our not… Read more »
No secret is made of the reason we still have Mo Elneny on the books – his influence in the dressing room. We have a young squad – and you cannot underestimate the value of positive influences that experience brings to a work place. I still see comments now about the “crap” we have signed from Chelsea prior to Havertz. Look at those players – they were all very experienced (luiz, cech, willian) – there are reasons for everything. The signing of Luiz in particular I’m convinced was very specific – at that point we didn’t have another Brazilian /… Read more »
I can’t recall who I was debating with in these fine pages, that I found his distractors including some of our fans odd. I asked if it were fair to judge a new employee in a new company with differebt set of values and culture to immediately aclimate in 4 weeks.
Sad to say some of our fans though he was complete failure. Quite sad really. Heres to King Kai leading us to good times.
There’s nothing sad about it. We’re fans and have different points of views. I’m one of those that wasn’t convinced by Kai. To an extent I’m still not but he is beginning to win me over. What IS sad, is if so-called supporters boo our own player or refrain from giving him full support in a game. I’ll support him all the way as long as he wears the shirt, but I’m perfectly entitled to think that we could have done better with £62m.
Not sure if you’ve been at the games – but there has been full support for him from the start (at the games). Where the self-doubt creeps in is armchair/bandwagon fans chipping in with how they could have better spent £62m
Somebody call the fire department! 😉
Amazing, really respect this – mental toughness/belief from Kai and support on Mikel’s part – sums up why we are still improving and can make that crucial next step! COYG ❤️❤️❤️ Fucking love this club
Mikel knows! Hope the gaffer sticks with the same starting 11 v LFC, want us to go for it up there!
As I recall, Kai Havertz was a reasonably great player for Bayer Leverkusen before he signed up for the Pensioners’ Army, But, on the other hand, what can one expect from that brigade of chavs? Here’s hoping Kai comes real good in an Arsenal shirt, and silences the doubters. I like Kai- and his donkeys and dogs. Merry Xmas everyone..
Reasonably great? He was world class with them. A young prospect touted to be one of the greatest players in the world.
He’s a good lad and he’s going to be key to a title run. Him and ESR both.
Would love to see them both explode on the run in.
Don’t you think ESR has had enough injury problems already?
Maybe fans will start trust Arteta’s decisions more. Anyone that has watched the game long enough knows what Mikel saw something in Havertz. He’s not Xhaka and will never be because they are different players. I said it after his 2nd goal that I have a strange feeling that he’ll score 20+ goals. He’s already on 5 with so many games more. I also noticed what might have made Arteta agree to let Xhaka leave. Arsenal’s system has been heavily dependent on Xhaka long before Arteta came. Whenever Xhaka wasn’t playing, our performance level dropped a lot. That’s why he… Read more »
Arteta has a ways to go before a lot of people will trust every decision- 65m on another ex Chelsea player after the previous few from that club had been flops- shows you more about the attitude of havertz (and jorginho too I suppose).
Arteta’s talent ID and moreover his ability to buy players who elevate the squad as a whole is nothing short of spectacular. His track record of the players we’ve bought since the pandemic speaks for itself. Besides the Hale end boys, and I include Martinelli in that, the whole current squad was hand picked by him and bought for good money from other teams. I can’t see a single expensive mistake on the team sheet. The one guy he whiffed on was Sambi Lokonga. Jury’s still out on Vieira and Kiwior. Otherwise it’s all wins. I don’t judge him for… Read more »
The left 8 seems to be primarily a “pillar” or “structure” position in MA’s team. Xhaka was really diligent off the ball whilst efficient and low-touch on it, allowing Partey and Odegaard more freedom of movement.
Havertz has those traits but also speed and the ability to be a target man and foil for Jesus (or vice-versa).
The relationship with Jesus could be really interesting. He seems to be dropping deep even more while Havertz makes runs.
At this point Odegard, Rice, and Havertz have to be our first choice 3 in the middle going forward. With Rice and Havertz I think they will get even better with time as they blend more with the team and tactics. On a tactical note I think Odegard needs make a few more passes to Zinchenko and Martinelli on left. I love the chemistry he has with Saka and Ben White, but sometimes the better pass is on the other side with both players open but we force it to go right. I also feel Havertz can make himself more… Read more »
I love the balance of an Odegaard, Rice and Havertz trio. Rice is the perfect foil for Odegaard, whose one weakness is his size. Odegaard is the perfect foil for Kai, whose one weakness is passing ball progression. Rice has no weaknesses. Seriously, he doesn’t. There are goals in this trio, there is an equal measure of technical ability and physical stamina, size and aggression, and they are all complimentary to each other. So where does Douglas Luiz fit in? I think he is the Partey replacement, an athletic pure 6 who can come in to shore up games we… Read more »
More goals from open play than Chelsea this season… lolol
That tweet was nonsense. It felt a bit much to me so I went and looked up the stat. Chelsea has scores 28 goals this season, 17 of them were from open play. As much as I’d love it to be true, it just isn’t at all
Waka Waka, motherf*ckers!! (sorry!) No, seriously, people were calling him useless for the first many games. Now he’s had some good ones, and suddenly he’s the second coming. Easy, lads. He’ll have bad days still, as will everyone else. But he’s ours, and we support him. Also on the bad days. It’s not a sprint – even though the media needs it to be to sell clicks. It’s a marathon. You need to play 38 games to win the title, and it doesn’t mean a damned thing where you are for the first 37. We all (myself included) need to… Read more »
OH YEH! ❤️
Well said mate
So fitting that his fan song is waka waka. Stop listening to pundits and naysayers and enjoy him and the Arsenal. Just a short/long history about that song and African football. Well that was back in the days when we didn’t have to listen to any pundits before the game, after the game or at halftime. No celebration police or anything. So whenever there was an African Cup of Nations or world cup, that bad boy would be thrown on pre match, post match and it was long enough to cover most of the halftime break. Everyone loved it and… Read more »
How could anyone down vote that great comment.
It’s great to be a Gooner!!!
As always, have no havertzion to Havertz, lol.
Left back on Saturday
Even his mama told him there’d be days like this
You can take the man out of Chelsea, but the trick was to take the Chelsea out of the man! Which we did…
that terrible tackle against Newcastle convinced me about Kai. Showed he cared really cared about his team.
if you are talented, and he is, and you play for others you will get to the good place.