When Arsenal signed Kai Havertz back in July, manager Mikel Arteta proclaimed, “He will bring a huge amount of extra strength to our midfield.”
It’s relatively unusual for Arsenal to be so specific about how and where a player will be used at their unveiling — especially when it comes to one as versatile as Havertz. Yet the German international was also plonked emphatically into the “midfield” category on the Arsenal website’s squad page.
It had the air of a rebranding exercise — an attempt to separate this Havertz from the one who had underwhelmed as a forward at Chelsea. It felt as if we might see the 24-year-old lean forward like the guy in the Bleu de Chanel advert to tell the assembled media, “I’m not going to be the person I’m expected to be anymore”.
And yet, thus far at Arsenal, Havertz has largely been that person. As Arteta seeks to bed him into his new-look midfield, he has resembled what in Germany they call a ‘Fremdkorper’ — an alien lost on the wrong planet.
The 1-0 win over Manchester City provided cause for both encouragement and concern. Havertz emerged from the bench to set up Gabriel Martinelli’s winner, undoubtedly his most important moment in an Arsenal shirt to date. It is also telling, however, that in Arsenal’s biggest…
