We live in an ever-increasing world that craves simplistic answers. That wants clear winners and losers, heroes and villains, a definitive full stop.
As much as that might be human nature, it also does not account for quite important variables such as nuance, context and patience. The transfer of Kai Havertz to Arsenal from Chelsea feels like a situation that could easily be framed in a very reductive fashion.
Either Chelsea are being stupid again and letting an extremely talented player go before they have fully blossomed. Or Arsenal have massively overpaid for a talent who has mostly flattered to deceive.
At the current moment, none of us can firmly gauge how Havertz's new chapter will play out. There is clear talent in the 24-year-old and there is some credence to the argument a different environment and a new voice in Mikel Arteta might finally develop potential into a tangible output.
Concurrently with that potential development, Chelsea can also move in a positive direction under Mauricio Pochettino, with a less bloated squad and fresh faces to focus time into.
At £65million Chelsea have done good business here. Given the player has two years left on his current deal and despite what some might present to you with cherry-picked stats, this fee arrives for a player who has underwhelmed for large stretches of his Chelsea career.
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Arsenal's development under Arterta was a great surprise last season, seeing a group of talented youngsters flourish along with some doubted seniors finding their best form. But the Gunners were quite reliant on a relatively small group of players. Squad depth is paramount in a sport that is increasingly doing way with off-seasons when you see the never-ending tidal wave of league, cup, Europe, internationals and jet-setting pre-season tours cramming the calendar.
Arsenal's involvement in the Champions League stresses the need for greater depth, but specifically quality depth. Although Havertz might not have proved the most effective player, from a profile point of view he very much could understudy Gabriel Jesus in a forward role, maybe fill in as an attacking eight when Martin Odergaard needs a break, or on the right wing were Bukayo Saka absent, an area he flourished in during his time at Bayer Leverkusen.
Havertz is a willing presser from the front. Although his on-pitch demeanour might give the impression of a laid-back character not fully connected to the game, he has proved capable of disrupting defences from the front in leading a press and harassing defenders in their own half, something that naturally aligns with Arsenal's very intense approach to step up and suffocate the opposition.
And despite a lack of productivity, Havertz proved at Chelsea to be somewhat of a Champions League specialist, saving both his most important goals and complete displays for that competition. Netting six goals across the three seasons at Stamford Bridge, three of those coming in the knockout stages, one infamously the winner in a final.
Whilst for Chelsea, gaining such a big fee helps with the FFP headache at the end of June and continues the decluttering of a bloated squad for Pochettino.
Havertz has flattered to deceive with streaks of good form littered across his trilogy of seasons. But he has been incapable of stepping out as the leading star many hoped he could become when he joined to much fanfare in the summer of 2020. Games have regularly passed him by, his physicality has left a lot to be desired and his finishing at times pretty woeful. It can be easy to blame the chaos at Stamford Bridge to excuse many players' underperformance, but that balance needs to be fair.
Havertz has been given ample opportunity in a variety of positions to succeed. Although many decry his misuse as a centre forward, one has to explain why Hansi Flick continues to deploy Havertz in such an attacking manner for Germany, or that nearly all of his best displays in England have come from that position. And when you analyse Havertz, he has not offered encouragement he is someone capable of constructing play or driving his team forward from a deeper position.
Havertz floats and glides which sounds elegant, but has too often led to Chelsea's attacks grinding to a halt when they need to accelerate.
As Chelsea podcaster and analyst Joe Tweedie summed up best recently, "Kai is a person you like the idea of more than the reality". Chelsea have been guilty of indulging too many theory players in recent years, rather than the end product. 19 goals in 91 league appearances are not woeful but do not exactly reflect a phenomenal talent.
For comparison, Tammy Abraham, who was deemed not good enough and sold to Roma, scored 21 goals in 56 league appearances. If you wanna compare him to Mason Mount in the same period as Havertz at Chelsea: since the beginning of 2020/21, he has one more goal than Havertz with only one more appearance.
The arrival of Christopher Nkunku from RB Leipzig offers a ready-made succession plan with hopefully a clearer impact on a weekly basis. Chelsea could have played it safe and kept Havertz for another year but would have risked sitting in the same boat in 2024, wondering where the German's best position is. He would have attracted less value in the market given he would only have 12 months left on his contract.
For Arsenal, they gain decent depth but maybe for an inflated fee, it will now be on Arterta to capture what made Havertz such an exciting prospect in the Bundesliga. For Chelsea and Mauricio Pochettino, a large fee can hopefully be used smartly to bolster other areas whilst ensuring Nkunku is not faced with the same questions as Havertz in three years' time.
