AMEX STADIUM — After Arsenal had completed their surprise swoop for Kai Havertz from London rivals Chelsea last June, Mikel Arteta mapped out his future plans for his new recruit.
“Kai is a player of top quality,” he said. “He has great versatility and is an intelligent player. He will bring a huge amount of extra strength to our midfield and variety to our play.” Note the word midfield and not attack in that sentence.
Sometimes the best-laid plans are subject to change. Havertz was effectively brought in to replace the Bayer Leverkusen-bound Granit Xhaka as the left-sided central midfield player in Arteta’s favoured 4-3-3 formation, a surprising succession plan given the only thing the pair have in common is that they favour their left foot over their right one.
The 24-year-old was an enigma at Chelsea. He produced snippets of brilliance and a winner in a Champions League final, but struggled to nail down a set position. Arteta’s decision to buy him was perhaps partly borne out of an unflinching faith in his coaching abilities, a desire to succeed where none of Frank Lampard, Thomas Tuchel or Graham Potter had by making a king out of Kai. The early signs weren’t promising.
Havertz’s first 14 Premier League starts for Arsenal were as a central midfielder and for the most part, he looked as incongruous in their team as he had in Chelsea’s.
Havertz managed a humble return of four goals and one assist in his first 23 league appearances this season. Evidence of his transformation can be found in his numbers over the last seven: five goals and four assists.
“A lot of times the players decide where they have to play,” Arteta said of Havertz’s position after Saturday’s comfortable 3-0 win over Brighton. “You can have certain ideas but then you see certain relationships and it flows. When it flows you have to let it go.
“That’s what is happening with Kai at the moment and he feels really comfortable there. The team is really comfortable with him there and the rest has happened naturally.”
Havertz delivered his most complete performance in his new(ish) role at the Amex. He looked like a proper No 9, not a false one, challenging for duels, making runs in behind and directly contributing towards two goals.
There were two moments, in particular, that encapsulated that. The first came right at the end of the first half when Havertz barged Lewis Dunk over inside the penalty area as though they were teenagers separated by four age groups in secondary school.
The physically imposing Dunk struggled to cope with Havertz’s physicality all game. Havertz is a big unit, standing at 6ft 4ins, and is far stronger than given credit for, probably because his naturally languid style is more befitting of more nimble types.
He’s not as elegant a player as Dimitar Berbatov was but it’s easy to see why the two were compared when Havertz was coming through at Leverkusen, the Bundesliga club where the Bulgarian made his mark.
The second instance was his goal, assisted after a long-busting run into the box by Jorginho, of all people. Havertz correctly predicted where his teammate of four years would roll the ball, bundled his way in between Brighton’s centre-backs and opened his body up to score with his instep. Anticipation, movement, finish: the three pillars of striker play, each ticked off in a matter of seconds.
It was Havertz’s ninth Premier League goal of the campaign, marking his personal best in the competition. It’s not the kind of total that will give Alan Shearer any sleepless nights about his all-time record but it is an important milestone nonetheless, a confidence boost for a confidence player.
KAI HAVERTZ!!!
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) April 6, 2024
Arsenal have a secondpic.twitter.com/RaBQNuguB1
“I think Havertz had his best game in an Arsenal shirt,” ex-Arsenal stiker Alan Smith said on Sky Sports. “I just think he looks so at home in that role he has been asked to play. He got himself a goal and his defensive work was excellent.”
When asked by Sky Sports how much he was enjoying proving the haters wrong, Havertz responded, with a grin: “A lot. It’s part of the game.
“There’s always people that don’t like you or speak bad about you. I accepted it. You cannot make everyone happy.”
The assist for Leandro Trossard’s late third added gloss to his and Arsenal’s evening, a satisfying clincher that made a hellish commute back to London on a dismally unpredictable rail service that bit sweeter for the travelling fans.
Brighton attempted gamely to drag themselves back into the game after Havertz made it 2-0 but left themselves exposed in doing so. Trossard raced onto a well-weighted Havertz pass and dinked a lovely finish over Bart Verbruggen to make it three.
Havertz received the man of the match award, recognition of his decisive impact, but there was a crowded field to pick from. Gabriel Magalhaes was a colossus, constantly in the right position to clear his lines on the rare instances that Brighton managed to bypass those in front of him.
William Saliba wasn’t half bad beside him either and it says much about the pair’s love of defending that they celebrated a late Gabriel block as though the Brazilian had just scored an overhead kick at the other end. They are the best central defensive partnership in the country by an absolute mile right now.
That statement is backed up by Arsenal’s recent impenetrability. They have now kept seven clean sheets in their last 10 matches in all competitions and managed five consecutive shutouts in the league for the first time since the Famous Five days in 1997. Such defensive dominance is doing wonders for their goal difference too: theirs is +51, a tally superior to Liverpool’s record by nine and City’s by 11. It could yet prove crucial.
Declan Rice ran the midfield against the inexperienced Carlos Baleba and jaded Pascal Gross, while Martin Odegaard was constantly probing, like a wily investigator attempting to extract a confession from a suspect.
It was a perfect evening for Arsenal and a result that took them back to the summit ahead of Liverpool’s trip to Old Trafford on Sunday.
At full-time a beaming Arteta strode out towards the Arsenal fans, making a beeline for Havertz as he went. Upon catching up with him, he pointed him out to the away crowd like a proud father drawing attention to an overachieving son. Havertz is doing things that perhaps not even Arteta believed him capable of. He’s a player transformed.
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