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Ornstein says Arsenal scouted Havertz extensively when he was at Leverkusen.
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Arsenal were in contact with his representatives in 2020, but were not able to pay the price Leverkusen demanded.
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Havertz popped up on Arsenals radar again around March this year, when he was approaching final 2 years of his contract.
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Mount, Gundogan and Kudus were looked at in the summer.
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Arteta was the driving force behind our interest in Havertz. Edu was on board.
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Bayern were interested in Havertz. Real Madrid wanted to wait and see how things unfolded with Harry Kane first.
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Once Havertz learned of Arsenals interest, he had a Zoom meeting with Mikel Arteta. After this he was fully comitted to Arsenal.
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Big difference in how public sees Havertz and how the people working in fotball see Havertz. He is highly rated in the fotball world.
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Havertz has very good attitude and is “ultra comitted and dedicated” and fotball obsessed to get this right and work with the coaches.
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His attitude, application and conduct on the training field is excellent. He is a very popular character with players and staff.
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Ornstein mentions Barella as one CM option this summer, but sounds more like he mentions Barella as one of the midfielders that could have been signed this summer and not that he was somebody we specifically targeted.
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Havertz base salary is in the region of 275k per week, almost same as at Chelsea.
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His price/wage might make fans expect a more “glamorous” role from him when in reality his current role is a bit more subtle.
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Marks the stats guy “Havertz is valued by Arteta for his work off the ball”. Havertz is really intelligent with his defensive positioning and doesnt shy away from a challenge when he needs to.
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True tackles = Tackles + challenges lost + fouls comitted. A way to see a players tendency to “stick a foot in”
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When in controlled posession, Havertz with his 6.4 true tackles ranks number 3 in the Arsenal squad. Adds a bite to the team when out of posession.
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He has 1.4 blocked passses per 90 minutes, second highest in the Arsenal squad.
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These are not the primary attributes Arsenal have brought him in for, but he has been in an important part in our defense being more solid this season.
So what I’m reading is that Havertz has good work ethic, attitude, “off ball movement” and defensive capabilities. Interesting, we bought a player who has excellent work ethic, attitude, “off ball movement” and defensive capabilities in the same window. For base salary of £275k a week and for £65m I would expect more tbh, but I guess if Arteta believes in him he has to be good right?
/u/Dazed_and_Confused44, I’d like to hear your thoughts on these comments.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Gunners/s/Pja0ooGbn3
Sure. Act like you weren’t arguing about this a couple days ago.
I think the reaction towards Havertz, in parts on here, but particularly anywhere else is crazy over the top. People act like he has been horrible - he has been OK.
And obviously he’s highly rated I’m the footballling world. Chelsea and Germany kept starting him, and Bayern, Arsenal and Real Madrid wanted to sign him. But we need more in the final third, much more quality. That he’s highly rated within the game, only goes so far, when we’re not even starting him half the time.
It will take more than a few months to settle into midfield for him, which many completely fail to acknowledge. Would absolutely love it, if he ended up fitting us like a glove.
People act like he has been horrible - he has been OK.
Look at how much we paid for him, though. And the reported wages he’s on. He needs to be a lot better than ‘ok’. IMO it’s the Pepe situation again. He was a fine player, but we broke the bank for him so really he needed to be giving us a lot more than just “fine”.
It’s only been 5 months. Slower start to his Arsenal career, but I believe it will get better. He currently has more premier league goals this season than Jesus and Martinelli…
City paid 100 mill for Grealish and it took him a comfortable YEAR to get adjusted to City and Pep’s tactics but it came good and now he’s putting top performances all the time. That was also a domestic transfer like Havertz was too.
Sometimes you have to shake off what you’re used to and adapt to a new system. He hasn’t even been that bad by any means, he just doesn’t feel like a 65 mill signing yet
Havertz base salary is in the region of 275k per week, almost same as at Chelsea.
This is where my pessimism starts. We’re not Chelsea, United or City; our wage structure will determine how flexible we are in the near future in terms of squad building. If Havertz is demanding almost 300k while being in the “unsung hero” category, it will cause issues when extending players who are a lot more impactful more consistently.
Why are we so different from those clubs? We’re a a global brand, owned by the largest sports conglomerate in the world, which is itself owned by one of the ~100 richest people in the world, making top-of-the-table money in by far the richest league in the world. We’ve spent as much as anybody in the last few years and we haven’t even made any Champions League money. We absolutely can afford wages like that.
I have faith that he’ll come good, but putting up his off the ball stats as a mini justification of that price tag is ridiculous.
If we wanted a player who worked hard off the ball we could have spent a third of the money and got exactly that.
who though? off ball stats is an area which football fans are generally the least acquainted with, naturally because of how we spectate football. when we say off the ball ability, most fans can’t even articulate what that exactly constitutes, much less how to measure a player’s off ball ability beyond plain work rate.
now i’m not exempt from this obviously, but i appreciate how wide the knowledge gap can be between a layman and a qualified professional. so if they say he is distinguished for his off ball ability then i’ll accept it, even though i want to see him score more.