Chelsea forward Kai Havertz has faced heavy criticism this season due to a lack of goals to help arrest his club’s struggles. However, the German’s fortunes began to improve last week, after his decisive goal against Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League was backed up with another strike against Leicester City on Saturday.
This contributed to Graham Potter’s side securing three straight wins for the first time since mid-October. Before the start of that sequence, the Blues had won just one of 11 games in 2023, and scored just four goals in the process, which had seen them slip to 10th in the Premier League table.
Havertz was often made a scapegoat for his side’s struggles, having contributed just one goal despite being a regular in Potter’s line-up, albeit as an unorthodox No. 9. Now, he has admitted the pressures that came with a lack of good fortune on the pitch negatively affected both his personal life and relationships with loved ones.
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“Football is our life. If you lose a game, of course you don’t have an easy life as well,” he said. “I think everyone at home, especially my girlfriend, has had some tough weeks as well in the last weeks and months. I think she is happy now again and so am I.
“For you guys, it is the same – if you have a bad day at work… you… I won’t say the word now but you don’t feel good. Football is a game where we have a lot of pressure on our shoulders.
“We want to make the fans happy and if you don’t make them happy, then you don’t have a good time. Winning is always the best, we won again, so we can enjoy some days.”
Signed from Bayer Leverkusen for around £72million in September 2020, Havertz’s finest moment came in the Champions League final the following spring, where he scored the winning goal against Manchester City. However, his career has since stagnated under three different management regimes.
Following last week’s boost, Havertz now has eight goals to his name in 35 appearances this season, along with a solitary assist. The 23-year-old added how last week’s turnaround could be the start of a more prolonged period of success, with there inevitably needing an adaptation period for the expensively-assembled squad to gel.
“We knew it was going to take some time to adapt for everyone,” Havertz continued. “So maybe, you could see that we are still not finished. It will always take time to develop. We can develop a lot but we showed another good performance (at Leicester) and we can be happy.
“Of course, to win three games in a row is important for us because we had a tough time before that. We knew we would bounce back. We still have a game to play (at home to Everton) before the (international break for the) national team. We have to keep our focus high and win the next game as well.”
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