When Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel hatched a plan to sign Romelu Lukaku for £97.5million in August, it was indicative of the German’s plan to challenge for the Premier League title. But his thinly-veiled criticism of the club’s frontline was particularly damaging for Kai Havertz.
"We need more goals and we rely on anybody and we want to trust anybody who is capable of scoring," he said in April.
"But you just need to read the numbers, our top scorers have six goals. This is clearly not enough for the demands, the expectations and the targets Chelsea football club has and what we demand.”
That must have felt like a kick in the teeth for Havertz and Timo Werner, who had only been given one season to get to grips with English football before Lukaku was drafted in from Inter Milan.
There was an obvious acceptance that a club of Chelsea's stature could not allow its holding midfielder to be its top scorer — and that is why they signed Lukaku. A striker with a proven track record of scoring in the Premier League, scoring 24 goals on the back of a title-winning campaign in Italy, it seemed a no-brainer.
Five months on and Havertz has been swept to the curb like a discarded can of Coca Cola — and his role as an impact sub from the bench only serves to highlight his recent demise at the west London club.
Chelsea had spent years tracking his development and waiting for the opportune time to launch their move for this exciting talent, rated as one of the best in the Bundesliga. Paying a club-record £72million fee showed they were serious about investing his future.
Joining a new club in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic was far from straightforward, and Havertz struggled to adapt to the pace of the Premier League. What’s more, Frank Lampard — the manager who brought him to the Premier League — was sacked just five months into his Chelsea career.
Have Your Say! Does Kai Havertz deserve a bigger role to play in Chelsea's season? Comment below.
Havertz will be the first to admit his goal return of six goals in 43 Premier League appearances is not good enough. For context, left wing-back Ben Chilwell joined Chelsea during the same summer as Havertz — and he has managed the same tally in 10 fewer outings.
There have been some highlights in his Blues career of course. The memory of that surging run through the middle, taking it past Ederson and finishing into an empty net to win the Champions League for his club in May 2021, no one can take that away from him.
For some fans, that goal was enough to pay off his exorbitant fee. For others, they felt it was the start of something special for the Aachen-born youngster at Stamford Bridge.
But it has not quite worked out for Havertz in 2021-22. He has only found the net twice in 16 league appearances this term, his last coming back in November against Burnley, and a spate of cameos from the bench have left him frustrated.
Clearly, there is some reasoning behind his poor form. The attacker’s first season in England was disrupted by coronavirus, to which he was heavily impacted and didn’t train for several weeks. Injuries and knocks that come part and parcel with playing in the Premier League have also disrupted his momentum when he has found form.
The other issue is that Chelsea’s system gives far more importance to the build-up play than the end product. It means the defenders and holding midfielders usually touch the ball more often as they look for a way to unlock defences, very rarely opting for a ball over the top.
For attackers like Havertz, that can often feel frustrating.
The German is accustomed to dropping deep and linking up with the play. But in Thomas Tuchel’s setup, there will be periods of four or five minutes where the front three barely touch the ball. When they finally get possession, the opposition swamp them in numbers and make it difficult to hold up play.
The 22-year-old is intelligent with his movement off the ball and will often drag defenders out of position, creating space in behind him. But that is to the benefit of others — and there is feeling Havertz may need to be more selfish in order to score more often.
At the same time, those excuses are now wearing thin for a player who should be delivering more. It is not about his price tag as such — Chelsea knew they would be paying a large fee to invest in a player for the next five years at least — but his enormous ability.
When he was at Bayer Leverkusen, Havertz was the focal point; everything went through him. And with regards to his 16 goals in the Bundesliga the season before he joined Chelsea, a lot were composed in the same fashion.
Havertz would knock the ball wide to Moussa Diaby or Karim Bellarabi and with a quick dart into the box, almost Lampard-esque, he would tap home. But he showed his range too, with deft finishes from tight angles hinting at a likeness to Dimitar Berbatov.
Chelsea play a very different system in Tuchel’s favoured 3-4-3 system. It is rigid and disciplined, and focuses more on defensive solidity rather than free-flowing attack. Havertz started the season as the leading man in that formation and responded with a fine display against Crystal Palace on the opening day, as well as scoring a crucial goal in the 1-1 draw with Liverpool.
Lukaku’s introduction into the team has forced Havertz into one of the supporting No10 roles in behind, to which he is clearly unsuited and has been largely ineffective. His work rate and willingness to press is undeniable, but he can often appear anonymous in matches where Chelsea desperately need his attacking influence.
Still, there are lingering concerns over Lukaku’s form and future after the Belgian’s struggles on his return to England, with only five league goals so far, and that could hand Havertz a way back into Tuchel’s thoughts.
After a run of just one win in their last seven matches, Chelsea now face a fight to hang on to their top four spot, and with Tottenham and Manchester United not far behind, Tuchel desperately needs his frontline to find their feet in front of goal.
But the former PSG coach may need to consider a change in personnel too, particularly given Lukaku's struggles — and Tuchel may view reinstating Havertz as his leading man as the perfect way to get Chelsea back to winning form.
