Sorry….scored a goal he didn’t mean??’
Donkai Havertz | Arsenal Watch
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I mean look at it, Havertz has no idea what he's doing. Jogging around just to find himself in the middle of a PL game during a counter-attack. His control is pure luck and then clearly aims at the corner flag. Very unfortunate.
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That's probably a fair comparison. If he does a fraction of what Mueller has done in his career, would be very pleased.
Looked like he tried to dink it over the GK
He can hardly be said to be a bargain but it's been a very good month or so. He's looking much more integrated, is playing with more intentionality and is getting on the end of moves, whereas he seemed to be hiding a bit before. Still don't think we've seen the best of him but he's definitely been justifying his selection recently.
I hope so, so much he'll be a huge success for Arsenal just to read your posts in this thread alone
He wont beI hope so, so much he'll be a huge success for Arsenal just to read your posts in this thread alone
I mean, you never know but he fits in perfectly so I'm optimistic he'll come good. He's finally being played as he played in Leverkusen and he's beginning to remind me of that version of himself. A midfielder who is decent at progressing the ball through linkup play and tidy passing, shows very nice hold up play at times and wins many headers, can drive the ball forward when he's facing the goal and has space, is very disciplined against the ball, shows a bit of flair occasionally and most importantly has exceptional timing and spatial awareness when ghosting into the box.
As said, no guarantees but in this team, I'm pretty confident he'll finally flourish.
Its really not easy to say what he's actually good at is it? but you gave it a good go.
Havertz is playing the same way but recently added some goals to make it look better. Those goals wont last forever and it will be back to safe easy passing, no creativity and no dribbling.
He wasn't playing well yesterday but scored at the end to cover it.
Surprising that you hold this view, you're usually so critical and objective when it comes to Havertz.
Where exactly do you disagree?
I actually agree that he had an average game to the goal. He had been much more involved in the Villa or the Newcastle games.
And his speed. Don't know why more isn't made of his pace. The guy is rapid, all 6'3'' of him. There was a clip where he was in a foot race with a defender, went past him as if he was stationary. With Chelsea he was facing the Xhaka curse, playing in a poor team with the expectation to single handedly win matches. Most players will come up short. But I'm confident that he can be an important cog in a well oiled machine.
Pretty much with all your posts in here, as I've made clear before. I feel you don't actually watch his games, and go on small moments which represent less than 5% of his performances and make it stick with what is your predetermined view of what he was once. When he's bad - it's the system, his position, something else, and you don't even recognise that he's being poor (which he was, really really poor up until mid November pretty much). When he's slightly better, not great but slightly better, all is wonderful. You're not objective when it comes to him (or, indeed, to most things German in general), I think it's fine to highlight that.
Thing is, there is no way to disprove accusations like "you're biased". Obviously, I don't think I am. I rather think I have a different perspective on football in general and therefore rate performances different. I am for instance not a huge fan of Diaby or Bailey who both not only have a Bundesliga but also a Leverkusen past and have found myself arguing with other Leverkusen fans in here who saw them way better than I did. When there were comparisons between Sancho and Havertz, I even argued against the latter since I don't think he is as talented. Even more so, so told me I'm biased on multiple things that aren't even remotely related to German football if I'm not mistaken, e. g. Messi, Guardiola or possession oriented football in general.
I could just do the same and argue that 99% of posters in this thread are more biased than me because most comments in here come from either Chelsea or United fans who want to see the transfer fail. But that's pointless as it just comes down to criticizing the poster and not the content so let's leave it at that and rather exchange actual arguments.
Most Utd fans will recognize that Arsenal's transfer business has been good over the past few years, but there's a special treatment for the Havertz one? Doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
He has been scoring lately, but I read somewhere his stats in the game, his number of passing and touches of the ball in the games are much lower than Odegaard and Rice. Hopefully the goals can rebuild his confidence and get himself more involved in the attacking play.
I don't think he will ever be a high touch player nor is that Arteta's plan for him. Odegaard, Rice, Zinchenko are already three players constantly on the ball. Havertz' role in our buildup is much more about pushing high and making runs to create more space for those possession players, then getting into the box as an additional striker once we have the ball in the final third. And to be a target for long balls and fight for second balls (which is really good at) when teams are pressing us and we need them to back off a bit.
IMO, Odegaard, Rice, Havertz is a very balanced midfield so long as the side has good ball progression players in the back four too like Zinchenko, Saliba, and White.
Ok this makes sense.
We are playing a lot better lately in my opinion. Lots of chances created and Havertz has contributed to that as well. He doesn't need to drive the ball forward. I will be happier if he keeps popping up in the right positions as he has been as of late. I know we lost versus Villa but that was a very winnable game. We just need to put more of our chances away now.
If Havertz can do it, can Mount?
Gotta get himself fit first. I also don't think ETH's plan for his midfield (or what it appeared to be at the start of the season) is going to work, though with the injury issues it's hard to tell. But with Casemiro looking like he may be on his last legs, you've got to sort out DM before you can get the best out of Mount IMO. Don't think Amrabat is it.
By contrast, Arteta's plan for Havertz seems to finally be taking shape, he just needed longer to settle. Think his presence in the box and playing that 2nd striker role is exactly what Arteta bought him for. He's astute defensively also, which I wasn't quite expecting (it also helps that Rice is almost like having 2 players).
Yeh it's not surprise that now Havertz has started to click, our forward play is a lot better. And I agree, I don't think his main purpose is to progress the ball or make defence-splitting passes; that's what Odegaard and Rice can do. Think Havertz's role is more about being a target man in the box and being a 2nd striker when we're in the final third.
Mount is better than Havertz, so I’d say yeah.
Yes, if he pops up from midfield to provide that additional target, that legitimately will bring opposing defenses another headache to deal with. I was surprised to see he leads the team in aerial challenges won...even over Saliba and Gabriel. Although, maybe considering his height it us not completely unexpected. Our crossing should become so much more dangerous and we can actually field a non-prototypical target 9 to balance out. This is if it works...jury is still out but it is looking more promising.
Yes I also saw that stat re: aeriel duels won floating around. Pretty impressive and goes to show that he does offer another dimension to our attack. If you think about it, if Havertz works, our midfield is quite nicely balanced.
Rice - doing the bulk of the defensive work/breaking down attacks. But his progressive passing is improving also.
Odegaard - the obvious playmaker to penetrate defences, good dribbler in tight areas, good crossing
Havertz - target man for long balls and set pieces, good at hold-up play and off the ball runs attracting defenders
They all have good engines and don't stop running. Havertz also has the added bonus that he is quite versatile.
They're also all 24 years old (well Ode just turned 25 this past weekend), so if it works our midfield may be set for the next few years. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. We still have Partey to come back too, and he gives us another option at 6 with Rice pushing up to 8.
United fans may recognize that Arsenal's transfer business has been good but that doesn't mean they aren't rooting for them to feck up as their club was made so much fun of over the last decade for their transfers. And based on his last season, the Havertz transfer had all the makings of a huge waste of money. Then there's also the whole "German football is turd" stuff, etc.
But as said, it doesn't really matter as their is no way to prove who is more biased. It is a fact that we all are in some capacity, so we better focus on exchanging more substantial arguments. And for me, Havertz fits in perfectly at Arsenal. I'm much more confident he'll come good than I was regarding Sancho to United although I think Sancho is the superior football player. Their whole system is so much closer to Bosz' philosophy in which Havertz performed so well.
I still don't think he's playing particularly well or well enough to say he's 'turning it around' but obviously the goals have allowed him more time to fit into Arsenal's midfield without the heightened scrutiny.
He's on track to score more goals than he did in 2 of the 3 seasons he was with us. He scored 9, 14 and 9 in 45, 47 and 47 games. He's on 6 in 26 games so far.
He's on track to score more goals than he did in 2 of the 3 seasons he was with us. He scored 9, 14 and 9 in 45, 47 and 47 games. He's on 6 in 26 games so far.
It's a bit of a stretch to try and say he didn't mean to control the pass and was lucky with his finish. I was expecting to see the ball get a lucky touch from him and him bundle the ball over the line. Quite a cool take and finish really.
This Van Dijk shot is the definition of 'definitely did not mean it' sort of goal contribution
Havertz scored a nice goal.
I remember wanting to sign Mount in the summer as a Xhaka replacement. I think he'd be doing better than Havertz in the midfield role for us but Havertz does offer us that height and heading ability.
I think i need to reassess how i judge him. I'm not going to pretend i watched him a lot at Leverkusen, so ill let @Zehner comment more on that, but at Chelsea he seemed to not really find his correct position, is he a midfielder, is he a forward, is he better coming in from the right etc?
With him signing for Arsenal, and Arteta immediately describing him as a midfielder, i think people were expecting him to come in and play an Odegaard type role, but as the left 8 rather than the right 8, and because of that, people were assuming he was deliberately not getting involved, and he was hiding etc, and to be fair, it did look like that to me as well.
However, the more i watch Arsenal just now, the more i think that's just going to never be his role, and it's why i think we are one of the teams that can actually get away with this type of player.
We use Rice, Zinchenko and Odegaard for building up, so he doesn't need to drop deep and be one of those midfielders with 80+ touches a game, so there's no pressure on him to be that. We play with a number 9, so there's no pressure on him to be a 15-20 goal a season striker. We have wide men so there's no pressure on him to have to take men on out wide.
It's almost like we've created this position for him where he just needs to be the spare man, almost be ghost like at arriving into the box, & to help either hold the ball or be on the end of through balls and crosses.
Honestly, it sounds like i'm making excuses for him, & i might be. But look at his goals. At the weekend there, it's not Havertz picking it up from deep and playing in Nketiah like you would normally expect, it's Nketiah dropping deep and playing through to Havertz.
My main concern with playing this type of player, & Havertz in particular, is that off the ball and winning the ball back we could be over run & out powered, but he's a harder worker in that way than i ever gave him credit for. The fact we are playing a midfield 3 of Rice, Odegaard & Havertz for a lot of the game and not being over run or we are just plain dominating tells you that.
I am looking for him to get even better though. I want him to be braver, to take more shots, to drive more, play with even more conviction. Hope that comes with more game time and confidence, that's what i see from the little Leverkusen highlights i did see that i think he lacks still.
It's tough to be too flattering because you look at him and you don't really see anything he excels at. He is an allround decent player that was overpriced to be honest. He may work out really well if he can step it up another level. Still question the transfer fee but he can be a useful player for us. Now that the attack is clicking a little more we get to hopefully see him making that jump. I do see him at least more involved now and he may well turn out to be worth his transfer fee. He is still relatively young just really starting to get into his best years ahead.
I really like our corners now. Martinelli and Saka have some legitimate targets to whip it in at. Big advantage to have your opposition worried about your set pieces.
I really like our corners now. Martinelli and Saka have some legitimate targets to whip it in at. Big advantage to have your opposition worried about your set pieces.
It's more than three years that he went to the PL already? Damn.
Personally I've always judged him as a midfielder for us, so didn't quite agree with all the harsh criticism of him early on. He was getting in good positions and missed a couple of sitters early on. Had those gone in, his start would have gone very differently. As it stands now, in 17 matches he's got 5 goals and 1 assist in all comps. Compare that to Odegaard with 7 goals and 3 assists (in 14 games), and that's pretty good for a new player settling into the team.
Interestingly his defensive work and positioning is much better than I thought - I expected him to struggle in this area of his midfield duties. But it ended up he struggled to impose himself going forward. I do think it helps that Rice is just a monster, but Havertz rarely gets caught out of position.
Well. He’s an interesting player that’s for sure.
Don't think I've ever seen a bigger fraud in football than Havertz. Morata is the closest I can think of.
He makes me imagine what Berbatov would have been like if he was really bad at football.
Morata isn’t a bad comparison actually
Morata scored a beautiful hat trick against Girona just a few days ago. He’s twice as good as Havertz
How on earth Arsenal watched him play for Chelsea and thought he'd be a good signing is beyond me