Chelsea fans need to have patience with Kai Havertz

Kai Havertz put in another mediocre shift for Chelsea against Leeds, but fans need to have some patience with the youngster.

Chelsea’s 3-1 victory over Leeds United on Saturday was a great team performance, despite a nervy opening 20 minutes. The Blues looked almost unstoppable going forward and borderline impenetrable defensively. At least for almost 24 hours, Chelsea sits atop the Premier League table.

Almost all of the Chelsea starters put in great shifts, particularly Olivier Giroud as the lone striker and Reece James at right back. The midfield was solid as well, with Mason Mount showing fantastic delivery on corner kicks and N’Golo Kante working industriously to steal the ball off opposing players. One Chelsea player who didn’t have his best match in the famous blue shirt though was Kai Havertz.

He was dispossessed rather easily at times and made a couple of questionable tackles before being substituted in the 67’ for Mateo Kovacic. Additionally, it felt like Havertz was just a millisecond too slow in releasing his compatriot Timo Werner on through balls behind the Leeds defense.

The 21-year-old German has been the subject of criticism on social media recently, with some pointing to his lack of goal contributions as evidence of a difficult transition to life at Stamford Bridge. I only have one word for these detractors: patience.

Before Havertz was purchased for £72 million from Bayer Leverkusen over the summer, no one doubted his potential to become a top attacking midfielder in world football. As a member of the Bundesliga side, he showed a technical ability unparalleled by other players his age, resulting in 18 goals and nine assists in all competitions. Havertz’s talent hasn’t diminished in any way since arriving at Chelsea, he simply needs more time to adjust to English football.

Havertz himself admitted that the Premier League is more difficult than the German top flight in an interview with the club’s official site back in October, which should come as a surprise to no one. He spoke about struggling to adapt to the greater intensity in England, which was only compounded by his battle with COVID-19, which kept him sidelined for three matches and an international break at the beginning of November. After a full recovery and more competitive minutes under his belt, Havertz should become comfortable with the consistently high level of play in the EPL.

Additionally, Havertz’s statistics for the Blues are not awful by any stretch of the imagination. He has scored four goals and assisted another four in 14 total appearances, including a magnificent hat-trick during Chelsea’s 6-0 drubbing of Barnsley in the EFL Cup back in September. While supporters will be hoping to see performances such as that against higher quality opposition, the numbers are more than serviceable. The fact that Havertz has been deployed in five different positions has also had a negative effect on his development, without a doubt.

For Chelsea fans, patience will be a virtue in the coming weeks. Havertz is a confident player and he certainly won’t let the harsh words of trolls hiding behind a keyboard affect his mindset. We shouldn’t either. I’m positive Havertz will be looking like one of the best midfielders in the league by the end of the season, and he’ll hopefully have a few trophies in his back pocket as well.