Kai Havertz’s assist for Martin Odegaard’s opener against Luton took the German’s total goal involvements for the season to 12; the best he’s managed in a single campaign since arriving on these shores in 2020.
After a tentative start to life at the Emirates, the 24-year-old has become a mainstay in Mikel Arteta’s starting lineups playing a variety of roles.
It’s fair to say the boss is delighted with his summer signing’s performances and insists there’s still room for improvement.
“I’m very pleased. He’s got incredible qualities to occupy different spaces in the attacking phase, to threaten the goal, to link up play, and when you have to be more direct as well he’ll give you that layout,” said Arteta ahead of Saturday’s trip to Brighton.
“Not only that, but I also think his contribution defensively is outstanding for the team, with his work rate, and the effort he is putting in the high press especially.
“He’s got more to come, more games to come, he needs to improve the numbers and I’m sure he will try to do it.”
Kai 🤝 Goal involvements pic.twitter.com/3IfLcO8p4g
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) April 3, 2024
Asked if Arsenal fans have seen the best of Havertz, Arteta continued: “I don’t think so. At this age, and he’s just started with us, it’s his first season, he’s building those relationships.
“He’s moving in those positions as well and he’s that good, and with the intelligence that he has he can be much better.”
While Havertz hasn’t racked up as many minutes on the pitch as some of his teammates, he’s featured in all but one of Arsenal’s games this season across all competitions.
Add seven appearances out of eight for Germany since September and the attacker has proved himself impressively robust.
The only concern at this point is bookings. Havertz has eight to his name so far and will pick up a two-game ban if he earns further cautions against Brighton and Aston Villa in Arsenal’s next two matches. After the Villa game, the counter resets.
I think Havertz has nine bookings, so the ban is really close.
I hope you’ve not added one from the CL.
He has 8 in the PL. 2 in the CL. He was also booked in the community shield, but that does not count towards Premier League totals so the article is correct.
Upsi, thanks for correcting me everyone 😃
Like his physique and physicality, both add another dimension to the team. More goals would be great so let’s hope that he keeps developing into the beast we need.
He’s the weirdest player. A total anomaly. He seems meek but is super physical. He has an incredible touch but often looks clumsy. He has the innocent face of a choir boy but then throws elbows. He can do unbelievably beautiful things and utterly terrible things. I just can’t quite get a read on him and I never know what he’s going to do. Could get sent off. Could score a worldie. Could trip over his own feet. I’ve heard RVP and Dennis thrown around. But the best comparison I can think of is Kanu. But really, he’s not like… Read more »
U in love ❤️Johnny?
“He has the innocent face of a choir boy”
He looks like one of the toughs that would hang out smoking cigarettes at the quarry when I was a kid.
Great description. His physicality is what surprised me most. He seems to relish the battles as well.
Kanu is a little more technical but is a similar player, a much better version of Chamakh?
Please don’t compare Kanu with Chamakh. Kanu is invisible!
To me the strangest thing is still his limited creativity (he cycles the ball rather than looking for defense splitters) and lack of capacity to drive with the ball past players. He’s surrounded by the right players that mean those short-comings aren’t as impactful – particularly as he’s developed into the team over the course of the season. But man, if he could do either (probably the latter would be best) he’d absolutely be one of the best players in the world. Even still he really gels well in this squad, and I’m happy to eat some crow pie after… Read more »
I have a sneaky feeling, deep down in the pit of my stomach, that he is going to do some damage in the UCL within the next few weeks and become a full-accepted cult hero. Martinelli, too. I have had that feeling for a while.
Fuck I hope you’re right.
He better, 70Mn is a lot of money esp when the seller is Todd Boehly who has a habit of throwing money.
I thought the quotes from Tom Lockyer were really interesting; smart, well-coached player analyzing the game. “It might not get picked up by the cameras” is exactly right: “The amount of times he did double movement today where he went short off [Teden] Mengi and then spun in behind, and he would have got the ball if it was played to him. It might not get picked up by the cameras, but they’re the sort of movements that even if he doesn’t get it, he might get the next one. Then he’ll keep going and get the next one, and… Read more »
So, I listened to the most recent Arseblog and found that Andrew had already made this point. I’ll try to listen on the first day in the future.
When my chelsea colleagues were laughing at how much we paid for him saying he wasn’t even worth half the fee i thought they had a point given his displays earlier in the season, but credit to him for his underrated effect he has had to the team, we forget how young he still is having played a lot of games at the top level, when some of us, me included was questioning Miki’s judgement signing such a player who was supposed to replace Xhaka he has proved a lot of people wrong, i like what miki said that he… Read more »
win the Champions League havertz
I think he’s going to be the latest one of the shrewd Edu/Arteta signings that end up becoming a vital world class cog to the team after we buy them while their stock is (relatively) low and then allow them to flourish with us and get back to their best. They’ve done it with Odegaard, Jesus, Trossard…and I think Kai is next. He’s going to be a critical player for us in the coming years and I can’t wait to watch him get even better.
Its a Lenny Kravitz ❤️in
that’s quite a good record he has, considering he only started playing for us in november! nah im joking, he’s been good for us thus far, but i’ve seen glimpses of brilliance from him in the past and know that he can be much better, he just needs more time. you can see he’s still got some chelsea in him with the occasional dive, we just gotta wait for it to go away!
I hope he stops picking up foolish yellow cards for diving 🤿