Donkai Havertz | Arsenal Watch

Plenty of underperforming players for sure. I thought you meant players who were "expected to look better in other teams", which I've only really noticed being said about Havertz.

When Werner or Lukaku were missing sitters left and right, nobody was saying they'd look better at Arsenal.

Maybe not at Arsenal explicitly but you'd generally expect Lukaku to perform better for Inter for example. To me it seems like Chelsea don't really think too much about how the player fits into their playstyle when they are convinced he's quality. Or maybe that they don't really plan in terms of systems to begin with. The philosophy rather seems to be "assemble good players and find out along the way how they fit together"
 
Makes sense as to why Arteta wants him. Could end up being a great signing for them.

 
Surprising deal, I still can't wrap my head around it. I look forward to seeing how he fits in (or doesn't) next season though.

I suppose we are betting on talent, and at the least he has the technique to link-up with Odegaard.
 
Ødegaard - Rice - Havertz feels really attacking heavy. They will blitz teams no doubt but I can see them being ocassionaly destroyed too (ala Brighton).

It will be useful in Europe, we were absolute toothless against Spotting Lisbon last year. Similarly had issues in our domestic cup games as well. We need a second string of team which will not drop quality from the first 11. This will also help during injuries and fatigue.
 
With Werner, Kai, and Ziyech gone its the end of a short era (or error). We still haven't effectively replaced Hazard, Willian, and Pedro. Mainstays in the team over a number of years. Let's see how the newer guys do over the next few years.
 
With Werner, Kai, and Ziyech gone its the end of a short era (or error). We still haven't effectively replaced Hazard, Willian, and Pedro. Mainstays in the team over a number of years. Let's see how the newer guys do over the next few years.
It is very hard to replace a peak Hazard. Mudryk may come good under Poch's management.
 
I still find it mind boggling that someone as shite as Havertz can go for £72m and then £65m in the space of 3 years.
 
We'll take one Nkunku next, please. :o
Let's hope he'll be able to make it work in that weird Xhaka position and improve us.

I actually think he’ll be a very good signing for you, if he’s used the way we’ve all been saying in this thread. I watch most Arsenal games anyway, but it will be particularly interesting to follow his progress.
 
Upgrade to Nkuku and get 70m for Havertz... Todd's doing something right. We'd have him gone for 15m.
 
I still find it mind boggling that someone as shite as Havertz can go for £72m and then £65m in the space of 3 years.

L
U
K
A
K
U

3407.jpg
 
I actually think he’ll be a very good signing for you, if he’s used the way we’ve all been saying in this thread. I watch most Arsenal games anyway, but it will be particularly interesting to follow his progress.

Arteta described him as a midfielder basically. So he will be our LCM (Xhakha replacement). Few tweeks may be needed but for that role he may actually turn out to be very good.
 
L
U
K
A
K
U

3407.jpg
Lukaku wasn't good enough for us, but he pulled his weight (hehe) in his first stint at Inter. And he does have a good goalscoring record. In other words, he's much more worth the 'value' than Havertz.
 
I don’t think he scored a better goal for us than this.

 
Arteta described him as a midfielder basically. So he will be our LCM (Xhakha replacement). Few tweeks may be needed but for that role he may actually turn out to be very good.

Yeah, the potential for him to explode into a genuine top player is there, and if Arteta sees him as a midfielder, that’s good for him. In fact I would guess that’s probably the thing that convinced him to join you the most.
 
Yeah, the potential for him to explode into a genuine top player is there, and if Arteta sees him as a midfielder, that’s good for him. In fact I would guess that’s probably the thing that convinced him to join you the most.

Based on what? You can barely tell me 2 on the ball attributes Havertz is good at.
 
Based on what? You can barely tell me 2 on the ball attributes Havertz is good at.

He's silky apparently.

In truth Havertz has the same problem that Oscar had. They both had moments of technical brilliance. Oscar against Juventus, and I remember him scoring a trivela at home against someone. Havertz in the clip above and a few other occasions. The problem is that these are just moments, and over the course of 90 minutes their technique or 'silkiness' left a lot to be desired. They're both similar in that they worked hard but were extremely sloppy in terms of general play. The perception that Havertz is some sort of classy footballer is one of the biggest myths going for me.

He has the potential to explode in a goalscoring sense for Arsenal, which I think they'll be happy with. As a footballer? I've said my piece, Chrissy.
 
Reminds of Berbatov - who I always thought we should have pulled back into a playmaker role in his last couple of seasons. The issue with that is simple for both: he'll offer nothing defensively as a midfielder, and teams don't really use 10's like that anymore.

Maybe Arteta thinks the rest of the XI are good enough to carry him, but it's a big gamble, especially at that price.

I still think he could have been had for half that if they'd started there!
 
Aren’t Chelsea and Arsenal supposed to be rivals? Seems a bit weird this whole cockney love-in when they’re sharing players around..
 
Based on what? You can barely tell me 2 on the ball attributes Havertz is good at.

What? He’s a good passer, his touch and control is excellent and he’s movement is very good.he’s inconsistent for sure but I also don’t think we ever really set him up to flourish.
 
What? He’s a good passer, his touch and control is excellent and he’s movement is very good.he’s inconsistent for sure but I also don’t think we ever really set him up to flourish.

If this were true do you not think he would've contributed more effectively (not talking about G+A) throughout matches ? A good footballer in a technical sense stands out regardless of manager, tactics, position. Their quality is obvious and shines through. This isn't the case with Havertz.

Look at Jesus for Arsenal. He might not have scored the goals Arsenal would've wanted or is particularly suited to be a lone striker but he's still an absolute handful for defenders with his link up play and unpredictable dribbling. Players that can contribute without scoring or assisting are invaluable because when they actually start banging them in they become the complete package. Havertz does neither.
 
Last edited:
If this were true do you not think he would've contributed more effectively throughout matches (not talking about G+A)? A good footballer in a technical sense stands out regardless of manager, tactics, position. Their quality is obvious and shines through. This isn't the case with Havertz.

I don’t think that’s true. I think he’s shown he’s a good passer, he’s shown his touch and close control is excellent. He’s shown that throughout the last 3 years. It just wasn’t ever consistent. Odegaard has a lot of qualities but you play him in a false 9 for 3 years, I don’t think you’re getting a good representation of the player he can be.

Havertz did pretty well all things considered, and there was a time where I thought he could be a permanent striker but he could never manage to build on his purple patches.
 
Clever from Arsenal to announce Rice the same day as Havertz so people aren't talking about the fact they've paid £65m for this donkey to play in midfield
 
I don’t think that’s true. I think he’s shown he’s a good passer, he’s shown his touch and close control is excellent. He’s shown that throughout the last 3 years. It just wasn’t ever consistent. Odegaard has a lot of qualities but you play him in a false 9 for 3 years, I don’t think you’re getting a good representation of the player he can be.

Havertz did pretty well all things considered, and there was a time where I thought he could be a permanent striker but he could never manage to build on his purple patches.

While the second part is true, he would still stand out as a top quality player. I've seen Odegaard play in the flesh every time Arsenal have come to the Bridge in recent years and he stood out every time as Arsenal's best player. Not just technically but also an ability to pick up clever areas that are hard to defend, creating space where there isn't any, and being unpressable in general. This is what top technical players do. It's a complete disservice in my opinion to the likes of him, and Berbatov as someone mentioned above to compare to Havertz technically in any way.

Mata and Kagawa are good examples of why your statement isn't entirely true.

Didn't see Kagawa enough to comment but Mata while gifted in passing and finishing was never really blessed when it came to dribbling and physicality in general (balance/acceleration). Those two go hand in hand for a technical player in his ilk, i.e D.Silva/Cazorla.
 
Last edited:
Insanely high fee for a player who's been very underwhelming for three seasons. I just don't get it. His touch and movement are good but he isn't a good enough finisher to play as a striker, doesn't have the vision to be an effective CAM and isn't a dribbler at all.
 
He's silky apparently.

In truth Havertz has the same problem that Oscar had. They both had moments of technical brilliance. Oscar against Juventus, and I remember him scoring a trivela at home against someone. Havertz in the clip above and a few other occasions. The problem is that these are just moments, and over the course of 90 minutes their technique or 'silkiness' left a lot to be desired. They're both similar in that they worked hard but were extremely sloppy in terms of general play. The perception that Havertz is some sort of classy footballer is one of the biggest myths going for me.

He has the potential to explode in a goalscoring sense for Arsenal, which I think they'll be happy with. As a footballer? I've said my piece, Chrissy.

Pretty spot on especially the Oscar comparison.
I dont agree with your last sentence though. Havertz is an awful finisher.
 
What? He’s a good passer, his touch and control is excellent and he’s movement is very good.he’s inconsistent for sure but I also don’t think we ever really set him up to flourish.

Good passer, not really i swear 90% of his passes are the safe easy pass. Control excellent, nope. His movement is good but is a poor finisher.
He isn't inconsistent though, he's consistently poor. In 3 seasons at Chelsea h'es not shown 1 attribute he's consistently good at.
 
I am literally flabbergasted by tweets welcoming Havertz to the "biggest club in England".

I understand that it happens among all fanbases, but the sheer number of Gooners doing it in Twitter makes me uncomfortable about a serious and substantive "psychiatric" problem in one part of London.