Three big questions: Chelsea’s Kai Havertz and new horizons

The Blues have finally gotten their man in Kai Havertz. What questions should Chelsea ask of him ahead of the new season?

Finally. Chelsea finally signed Kai Havertz. A deal that seemed impossible quickly escalated into the realm of believable before being left to boil for what felt like an eternity. Havertz seemed so close, so many times, that many articles were written for “any moment now” and then got left in drafts for weeks. But that is all done now and Chelsea has signed their biggest name since arguably Eden Hazard eight years ago. What questions need to be asked about Havertz before the new season?

1. What is he good at and why might that cause an issue?

Everything. Okay, that is not a fair answer. He is certainly not the player that the club would want holding in midfield (though that has happened before). Maybe he is not the player the club wants leading the line? Oh wait, he has done that too. Well, he can’t play in the back line!

Channeling Frank Lampard, seriously though, the German wunderkind is good at basically everything in an attacking sense. He can pass with almost perfect precision. His strikes are both well timed and well-aimed. His ability to find space is nearly supernatural.

If a “but” is sensed it is not wrong. The “but” is that he is so good at so many things that a manager will want to leave them as free as possible to do those things. That requires the players around them to be more rigid in their positioning to accommodate or the player themselves has to be put into a role and will ultimately hinder some part of their skill set. This is exactly the same issue Mateo Kovacic runs into.

But Havertz is far more of an attacker than Kovacic, so it becomes easier to fit him in and give him that free role. The main question is how it will force his teammates to adapt. Any of the midfield combinations should be fine, even ones including Mason Mount as he has shown he can be positionally disciplined if required. The main issue, at least initially, may come with Hakim Ziyech.

Both Ziyech and Havertz are left footed. Both want to drift right or start on the right before moving in for a shot or a pass. If the two can learn to rotate with one another and accept that it is a team game, it will be a deadly combination. But if both players try to play hero, they will trip over one another in those positions.

That could become a tactical advantage (overloading the right before switching play to the left where Timo Werner and Christian Pulisic like to linger) if the problem is turned into a solution. It could also become unfortunately predictable, an issue that has already been seen with the Reece James and Ziyech tandem despite its potency.

Either Lampard will need to give the two plenty of reps to develop a partnership, or he will need to adjust in one way or another to cope. Both players could play deeper in midfield and while both traditionally play on the right to make the most of their left foot, if they keep getting in each other’s way, moving one to the left might be the best idea.