The Real Reason Arsenal Want To Sign Kai Havertz
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00:00 (gunshot)
00:02 - Kai Havertz and let's slip the dogs of war.
00:08 Shakespeare for you there?
00:09 Anyway, yes, hello everybody, Adam Cleary from 442 here.
00:11 And by the time you watch this video,
00:13 Kai Havertz will almost certainly be an Arsenal player,
00:17 which is weird.
00:18 But this has been rumbling on for a while
00:20 and I've already watched a couple of videos
00:21 where it looks at how Kai Havertz is such a perfect fit
00:23 for what Michael Arteta wants
00:24 and how he's gonna slot seamlessly into this side.
00:27 But we were talking about it in the 442 office
00:30 and everybody's missed something.
00:32 There is one thing that Kai Havertz does really, really well
00:36 that this Arsenal team currently does not really do at all.
00:40 And I think that might be the real reason
00:41 Michael Arteta wants him.
00:43 So.
00:44 Right, so we covered this extensively
00:47 in the Declan Rice video, which will be here
00:50 or in the description or somewhere for your viewing pleasure
00:52 but just to quickly go over it, this is how Arsenal play.
00:55 It's a 4-3-3, except no, it's not of course
00:58 because they have one midfielder sits there,
01:00 the fullback, usually Zinchenko, inverts into the middle.
01:03 They shuffle across into a back three
01:05 and they end up with this box midfield.
01:08 And if I have to say box midfield one more time this year,
01:10 I'm gonna go mad.
01:11 But whatever, the important thing about it for this video
01:13 is that it leaves Arsenal with these two players here.
01:15 They have two number eights.
01:17 Now, one of them, as Arsenal fans well know,
01:19 is Martin Oerdegaard.
01:20 He was a creative presence.
01:22 He is a goal threat.
01:23 He can make things happen.
01:24 He contributes to a lot of good things for Arsenal
01:27 in the final third.
01:28 And the other is of course, Grainer Czaka,
01:30 who has done a very good job in that role
01:32 but is very much just doing a job in that role.
01:35 That's where you can make an upgrade.
01:36 Now, the reason they want Declan Rice
01:37 is because if you put him in this midfield
01:39 instead of Thomas Party, that relieves everybody else
01:41 of a little bit of defensive responsibility.
01:43 They haven't got to be as worried about the space.
01:45 They haven't got to work as hard to win the ball back.
01:47 He will up their levels of doing that
01:49 so everyone else can have a little bit more fun
01:50 going forward.
01:51 And while Kai Havert can play as a center forward
01:54 in this system, he's been a false nine for Chelsea
01:55 for most of his time there,
01:57 it makes sense that he would be the man
01:59 to replace Oerdegaard.
02:01 This left-sided number eight.
02:02 Allow him to use his technical ability a little bit more.
02:05 And that really does make sense
02:06 because if you look at his numbers as a center forward,
02:08 he's really, really good at every single part of that
02:12 except scoring goals.
02:14 His carries, his touches, his passes, his link-up play,
02:17 every single thing about being a modern center forward
02:19 he absolutely excels at, as you can see here,
02:22 just the one bar at the end of this graph,
02:24 which is kind of important, is scoring goals.
02:27 And he's not great at that.
02:28 But just to be completely fair to Kai Havert,
02:32 I would personally argue that that start looking that bad
02:35 is as much down to A, him just lacking a little bit
02:39 of ruthlessness in front of goal, not quite being clinical,
02:41 but also B, him being a part of that Chelsea team
02:44 which was collectively about as bad as finishing
02:48 as the last (beep) season of Game of Thrones.
02:50 But regardless, his off-the-ball work,
02:51 which is really, really important to Mikael Arteta,
02:53 is through the roof, so he can replace Gabriel Souzis
02:56 in that number nine position.
02:57 But also, if you put him in at the number eight,
02:59 provided you've gone and got right,
03:00 so someone in that position,
03:02 he'll be free to do loads of link-up play,
03:03 to get into the box, to be a threat,
03:05 to just do loads of stuff that you naturally think
03:07 of Kai Havert as being good at.
03:09 (laughs)
03:10 But of course, this video is not about all the stuff
03:12 that you naturally think of Kai Havert as being very good at.
03:15 Everyone else has covered that.
03:16 He'd just be a great fit.
03:18 We all know this.
03:19 This video is about the stuff that you don't naturally think
03:22 of Kai Havert as being brilliant at,
03:24 and why that is really important for Arsenal.
03:27 Right, so here we are.
03:28 I think the real reason Mikael Arteta wants Kai Havert,
03:32 let's not forget, one of the most technically proficient,
03:34 excellent with the ball at his feet,
03:36 centre-forwards in all of Europe, is because headers.
03:40 Arsenal do not score the number of goals
03:42 they wish they did from headers,
03:44 and Kai Havert is really, really, really good at headers.
03:47 Just to pick through a few numbers of this,
03:49 Arsenal were actually in the top four teams
03:51 in the Premier League this season
03:52 for goals scored from headers.
03:54 However, all but about four of those
03:56 actually came from set pieces.
03:58 Now you probably hear that and think,
03:59 oh, so Saliba and Gabriel and the defenders
04:01 got loads of goals.
04:02 They actually didn't.
04:03 Most of these were scored by Jesus, Martinelli, and Chaka.
04:05 But the thing about set pieces is even if it's not
04:08 your best headers of the ball scoring the goals,
04:10 then your best headers of the ball are at least being marked
04:13 by the other team's best headers of the ball.
04:15 So it's easier to do.
04:16 And fundamentally, the reason they were much better
04:18 at getting these headers from set pieces
04:20 as they were from open play is because Arsenal
04:21 just don't put that many crosses into the box.
04:24 They were in the bottom half of the Premier League table
04:26 last season for crosses, which might not sound
04:28 that much of a significant drop off.
04:30 But if you think they're just ahead of like Wolves
04:32 and Leeds in terms of like the total number of crosses,
04:34 like think about how many attacks,
04:36 how many times Arsenal are in the opposition third,
04:39 and the fact they're putting in about the same number
04:41 as teams who attacked way less,
04:42 who spent loads more of the game defending,
04:44 shows you what a significant sort of drop off that.
04:47 You can wrap your head around that, can't you?
04:48 It's like a percentages thing.
04:50 It's a proportion thing.
04:51 It's a proportion.
04:52 Arsenal's proportion is very small.
04:54 And I mean, it's a fair one.
04:55 Like, why would you put crosses in the box?
04:57 If we just look at Jesus, Martinelli,
04:58 and Saka's numbers for headers,
04:59 they're really, really poor at them.
05:01 That's not what their game is at all.
05:03 They don't contest them very well.
05:04 They don't win them very often.
05:05 It's just, why would you cross it for them?
05:07 But let us just add my friends,
05:09 Kai Havertz's numbers to that little chart.
05:12 Kai Havertz is not just good at headers.
05:14 He's not just better than Arsenal's current options
05:16 at headers.
05:17 He is one of the best players in the Premier League.
05:20 And I've looked at the rest of the numbers,
05:21 the rest of Europe for headers.
05:23 In fact, of all the non-penalty goals,
05:26 Kai Havertz has scored for Chelsea
05:27 over the last two seasons.
05:28 All 19 of them, nine were headers.
05:31 Nearly half of them were headers.
05:33 Like, if I asked you to guess,
05:34 how tall do you think Kai Havertz is?
05:36 You'd probably say, what, like pushing around six foot,
05:39 something like that?
05:40 He's 6'4".
05:41 If you went to the NBA,
05:42 you'd make a reasonable small forward.
05:44 And truly, honestly, genuinely,
05:45 I do think that's why Mikel Arteta is so interested
05:48 in spending this amount of money on him.
05:50 'Cause if you just want something a bit more creative
05:51 in this number eight space,
05:53 if you just want something a little bit more Urdugadi,
05:55 you can play Emile Smith-Rowe.
05:57 But if you want all of that,
05:58 like you want the positional play,
05:59 you want the movement,
06:00 you want the tactical flexibility,
06:01 you just want the ball knowledge,
06:02 you want all of that,
06:04 and something they don't already have,
06:06 you want Kai Havertz.
06:07 He can do every single thing required of this Arsenal attack,
06:10 every single thing Mikel Arteta wants these players
06:12 to be comfortable doing,
06:13 but he can also be another option.
06:15 Like in the Bakayo Saka video we did this week,
06:17 which I will put another link to somewhere
06:19 in case you're interested,
06:20 I highlighted the goal they got against Southampton,
06:22 where short of options,
06:24 he gets to the byline,
06:25 puts in a great cutback,
06:27 and Martinelli does this absolutely fantastic finish.
06:29 But if we just look at the setup to this goal again,
06:31 the chances of Arsenal getting something out of the situation
06:33 are absolutely minuscule.
06:35 It requires a great bit of play by Saka,
06:38 a fantastic bit of movement by Martinelli,
06:40 a finish that's somehow even better,
06:41 and the two of them just being on the same wavelength enough
06:44 to make that happen.
06:45 Realistically, what you would actually want
06:47 in that situation is yes,
06:48 the option to be able to do that,
06:50 to know that somebody might hold back
06:51 and keep their own on the penalty area,
06:53 but also depending on what the lay of the defenders is
06:55 when you get to the byline,
06:57 if you could just lift that up to the back post
06:59 at the same time,
07:00 that's much harder to defend against.
07:02 But the reason Saka cuts it back there
07:03 is because that's really his only option.
07:05 If he sticks that up to the back post,
07:07 Jesus is never gonna win that ball in a million years.
07:10 But now imagine it's Kai Havertz,
07:12 who wins 97% of the balls he goes up to try and win.
07:16 And I know I'm using an example of them scoring a goal here,
07:18 which is obviously not ideal,
07:20 but you can imagine, can't you,
07:21 if they got into this position
07:22 and it all clicked absolutely perfectly for them to finish,
07:25 how many times were they getting into similar situations
07:28 where the best ball to play
07:29 would be something lofted into the box
07:31 and just could not do that?
07:32 Lots, I would think.
07:33 And one final point to address,
07:35 because I know exactly what I would be putting
07:36 in the comments, yes, it is probably debatable
07:38 that Kai Havertz has flopped at Chelsea.
07:41 Certainly where his reputation was when they bought him,
07:44 pretty much seen as like the best young prospect
07:46 in all of Europe to where he is now,
07:48 he has not lived up to that.
07:49 But can we all just agree,
07:52 based on these examples and several others,
07:54 that just because it doesn't work at Chelsea
07:57 doesn't mean it ain't gonna work?
07:58 Just one final point, in case you're watching this thinking,
08:01 "Wow, Adam, what great insight.
08:03 You must have this really big, veiny, bumpy,
08:06 not smooth at all footballing brain.
08:08 I can actually take zero credit for this idea."
08:11 Whatsoever, that must all go to 442 Heavyweight
08:14 and Arsenal genius Mark White,
08:16 who if you're not following already, you should do.
08:18 Anyway, though, that's just what I,
08:20 and by I, I mean the collective 442 hive mind,
08:23 think about Kai Havertz going to Arsenal
08:25 and why Mikel Arteta might be rubbing his little hands
08:27 at the prospect.
08:28 Interested, of course, to know what you think,
08:29 so please do get that in the comments below.
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