Havertz to Chelsea
[A thread]

With it looking almost certain that Havertz will join Chelsea in the coming weeks, I’ve done a thread going over his strengths as a player and how he would fit in at Chelsea.
Likes and RT’s appreciated
#CFC

Aged 21 and currently playing in the Bundesliga Kai debuted at 17 years old, where he became Leverkusen’s youngest ever goalscorer.

Since then he has become the youngest player to reach 50 Bundesliga appearances, and has registered 29 goals and 9 assists in the last two seasons.

Havertz is a versatile player who likes to get forward, carving out opportunities for himself and others.

He’s a supreme creator, having played more through balls than any Chelsea player this season and his 18 goal contributions are joint highest in the Chelsea squad (Abraham)

In build up play Havertz likes to drift around linking play together.

He usually operates in the space between midfield and defence and his pass maps below both illustrate his positioning but also his ability to create changes (shown in light blue).

He’s a fantastic chance creator, which is reflected in his number of shot creating actions (passes/dribbles that lead to a shot being taken), creating 117 shooting opportunities over the season.

By contrast, Chelsea’s best:

Mount 117 (*7 more apps)
Pulisic 79
Azpilicueta 79

His elite level of chance creation is something Chelsea have really missed out on this season.

If you look at their pass maps from their losses, you can really see a lack of creativity. With Havertz, Chelsea could break these sides down and start winning these kind of games.

However, what he is most known for his movement around the box, usually arriving late to slot home a cut back.

Of his 36 career goals, a lot of them come from this situation, where he runs in from deep to finish off an attack as shown below.

In these situations his football IQ is clear to see.

Take his goal against Berlin. He comes in from the right and spots the space but stays on the defenders blindside so his run isn’t tracked. Holding his run the defence fail to notice him leaving him with an easy finish.

If you look at his shot map over the last two seasons, you really see how often he gets in the box. For contrast Tammy Abraham’s is shown also.

Although Havertz is usually on the end of low crosses, at 6ft 1 he’s dominate in the air also.

With Chelsea putting in 859 crosses (4th most in PL) having a player who can both get in the box and win aerial duels would be of huge benefit to their attacking output

Not only does he get himself into goal scoring positions, but he converts extremely well.

Over the last two seasons he has outperformed his XG by 7, which is higher than the likes of Kane, Aubameyang and Vardy.

If you contrast this with the Chelsea squad he would be there most prolific finisher.

No player at Chelsea outperformed their XG by more than 1.5, with their striker Tammy Abraham underperforming by -3.08

With him being both effective in build up play, creativity and finishing it has seen him play in a variety of positions over the course of this season.

AM 1082 minutes
RW 624 minutes
ST 396 minutes
CM 251 minutes

His versatility would be of great use to Lampard, who has often switched formations and systems this year.

We could see Chelsea line up in a number of formations and Havertz play anywhere from an 8 (CM) forwards as shown below.

His linkup with fellow signings Ziyech and Werner would be interesting.

Both Kai and Ziyech play AM/RW so we could see lots of positional interchange from them.

With Werner, both like to make runs into the box and this would cause nightmares for the oppositions defence.

Overall, Havertz would be a great player for Chelsea. He has the quality to fix a lot of problems that they’ve run into this year (surrounding finishing and creativity) and would be a top class signing.

Likes and RT’s appreciated #CFC