Donkai Havertz | Arsenal Watch

65m allowed us to get the deal done quickly. Arteta can take a good look at him in pre season and if he's not what he wanted, then he can bin him. Better than haggling for him just to see him underwhelm costing us vital points.
It's alot of money. I'm undecided about him..it's a big gamble. Guess we will see..
 
That is exactly what it is. We are finally acting like a CL club. Edu was so looking forward to this day got bored of his 10m/15m punts.

If the punt doesn’t work, you have to keep paying him £331k per week though.

A £10-15m punt is on £50-£70k per week.
That’s the difference.
 
If the punt doesn’t work, you have to keep paying him £331k per week though.

A £10-15m punt is on £50-£70k per week.
That’s the difference.

Bild say he's on £331k a week. They also say he takes over from Thomas Partey as top earner. When they can't get that right, I'll take what they say with a bit of a pinch of salt.
 
If the punt doesn’t work, you have to keep paying him £331k per week though.

A £10-15m punt is on £50-£70k per week.
That’s the difference.

That was a dig at Edu.. perhaps that wasn't evident by the post.
Most if not all Arsenal fans can't wrap their head around this transfer.
 
CL Winning Goal and now American World Championship winning goal. Absolute bargain at 70M and 400k per week :drool:
 
CL Winning Goal and now American World Championship winning goal. Absolute bargain at 70M and 400k per week :drool:

The only goals that count are the ones scored in skill show volley contests, not real* games.



* obviously this is not a real game, obviously I'm extracting the urine. Just in case it needs to be clear for the Caf
 
CL Winning Goal and now American World Championship winning goal. Absolute bargain at 70M and 400k per week :drool:

Nice cameos by the new boys I thought. Should be a good game at the weekend.
 
Nice cameos by the new boys I thought. Should be a good game at the weekend.
Yeah i liked Timber's movement and will to go forward.
Rice was tidy and Havertz plays a bit like it's the 92nd minute, very pedestrian. Will need a few weeks/months to be able to play at our rythm. This is not Chelsea.
 
Good luck just binning him. Absolutely mental logic.

Perhaps a better thing to say is that now at least Arsenal have options if he can't nail down that attacking 8 position, or we find we are too imbalanced with him in there.
Trossard or Smith-Rowe can play the attacking 8, we can play any combination of Jorginho, Rice or Partey if we want to be more defensive, and Havertz can just become utility cover.

Would be disappointing if he doesn't work out of course, not saying otherwise, but not fatal in my opinion.

Yeah i liked Timber's movement and will to go forward.
Rice was tidy and Havertz plays a bit like it's the 92nd minute, very pedestrian. Will need a few weeks/months to be able to play at our rythm. This is not Chelsea.

I think Havertz was neat and tidy enough when he got the ball. I'm thinking his role going forward might be exactly that, to be neat and tidy but don't expect the involvement in build up like someone like Odegaard has, instead his role will be to drift into pockets of space and late runs into the box to find and finish chances like he did last night. Dare is say Dele Alli esque?
 
Dare is say Dele Alli esque?
I think they're very similar but it's also why I think Havertz won't succeed. He's not really an AM like Odegaard and his best play comes when he is closer to goal and not deeper. His best position is basically second striker but there's no such role in football anymore and players like that struggle to get into games sometimes. I always felt Brandt was the better of the two when they were in Leverkusen, although you can also argue that neither have lived up to their billing.
 
Arsenal have made 3 high profile signings so far, although you can argue Timber is a level below the other 2. Just going off averages across multiple clubs, 1 of those will probably fail. It's not really Arsenal's fault, no team has a 100% success rate with transfers. Arsenal have taken a gamble and it's nice to see a manager being backed heavily off the back of a strong season.
 
I think they're very similar but it's also why I think Havertz won't succeed. He's not really an AM like Odegaard and his best play comes when he is closer to goal and not deeper. His best position is basically second striker but there's no such role in football anymore and players like that struggle to get into games sometimes. I always felt Brandt was the better of the two when they were in Leverkusen, although you can also argue that neither have lived up to their billing.

I think if you can set your team up well and the player himself can still be disciplined and proactive enough when they don't have the ball, a role like that can still work to a certain extent, but I understand be why there will be scepticism and it will be up to Havertz and Arteta to make it work without a detriment to the team.
 
I think he'll do well but I can see him being the type of player who'll put the icing on the cake in a 4-0 drubbing, for the time being.
But I can see him being one of their more major influential players in a couple of years time.
 
I thought Arteta's plan was to use Havertz as an 8/AM which I thought was a great idea and probably what Havertz needed for his career but if the plan is to use him up front like we did, then I guess we'll see more of the same from him.
 
I thought Arteta's plan was to use Havertz as an 8/AM which I thought was a great idea and probably what Havertz needed for his career but if the plan is to use him up front like we did, then I guess we'll see more of the same from him.

He was an 8 when he came on last night, and when he came on the week before, so that's defo where he has earmarked for him.
He'll obviously need to perform to stay in the team though.
 
He was an 8 when he came on last night, and when he came on the week before, so that's defo where he has earmarked for him.
He'll obviously need to perform to stay in the team though.

I just saw some Arsenal fans online say Arteta is going to use him as competition for Jesus.
 
I thought Arteta's plan was to use Havertz as an 8/AM which I thought was a great idea and probably what Havertz needed for his career but if the plan is to use him up front like we did, then I guess we'll see more of the same from him.
He was used as an '8' in the MLS All Star game last night. From the look of it, it seems he's instructed to link up and rotate with the left winger and ghost into space as the winger cuts inside. Was decent for the time he was on the pitch and scored a good goal which is the type of goal he'll be expected to score more often next season.
 
I thought Arteta's plan was to use Havertz as an 8/AM which I thought was a great idea and probably what Havertz needed for his career but if the plan is to use him up front like we did, then I guess we'll see more of the same from him.
I feel If we kept our UCL winning blueprint instead of ripping it up to accommodate Mr first touch his Chelsea career would have took a different trajectory in my opinion, atleast in the short term anyway.

What's done is done and I absolutely have no complaints with him effectively reimbursing Nkunku's transfer but I feel he's a lot better as a false 9 than given credit for.
 
Arsenal fans flexing with our CL win :lol:
I also don't think that bragging about a single goal that happened several years ago, in the most important match of the year sure, is quite the flex people think it is. When the only highlight you can think of for a 65m player is that, it's somewhat worrying - when the goal was in part due to one of your current players (Zinchenko) switching off and not properly tracking his run, it makes it even more delicious.
 
I also don't think that bragging about a single goal that happened several years ago, in the most important match of the year sure, is quite the flex people think it is. When the only highlight you can think of for a 65m player is that, it's somewhat worrying - when the goal was in part due to one of your current players (Zinchenko) switching off and not properly tracking his run, it makes it even more delicious.

Don't get me wrong, I love the goal. His first touch would have sprayed the ball past the back line, had the keeper not slowed it down. It was a series of unfortunate things for Man City that lead to that goal. It really was not a moment of brilliance at the highest level. None the less, that moment was deafening in my household.
 
Don't get me wrong, I love the goal. His first touch would have sprayed the ball past the back line, had the keeper not slowed it down. It was a series of unfortunate things for Man City that lead to that goal. It really was not a moment of brilliance at the highest level. None the less, that moment was deafening in my household.
The pass to him was the best thing about the goal really. Who was it from? Was it Mount or someone else?
 
Good luck just binning him. Absolutely mental logic.

Yeah no way we are just going to bin him. If he doesn't adapt to his midfield role, then I foresee him becoming a very expensive squad option that can backup Jesus, Odegaard and Saka.
 
I just saw some Arsenal fans online say Arteta is going to use him as competition for Jesus.

All signs point to him being used as a midfielder.

He could potentially play games up-top if Jesus is out, but that would probably be in an emergency.
 
Just to interject because I keep seeing this bandied about, there’s no chance Kai Havertz is on £330k/week – breaking the Arsenal wage structure on a chance acquisition.

There’s no doubt Arsenal have taken the plunge here and it’s a transfer fraught with risk, but we wouldn’t confound that by offering nearly 15% more than the next best paid man (Saka on a base salary of £290k/week).

The source of this £330k is “GiveMeSport”, how they’ve managed to supposedly get this scoop ahead of the likes of David Ornstein I don’t know. In fact, there is no reliable source for his salary whatsoever, just this GiveMeSport article which has been regurgitated. Using this as a bat to beat him with is so unnecessary, the transfer figure alone is heavy burden enough.

I was not overly inspired by the signing, I think our money could have been better spent elsewhere. Caicedo for instance feels an achievable get if the Havertz money was paired with any additional reserves we might yet have. That said, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and judge him at the end of the season and not join in the pre-season criticism, from a "skills challenge" of all things.
 
Wait who's Robbie? Was a genuine question!

My bad. Silly AFTV reference. It was indeed United’s number 7 who provided the gorgeous assist. Mostly gone unnoticed is Werner’s clever run into the channel to create the space for Havertz to run into.