It's easy to forget that Kay Havertz is only 22 years old: he's only six months older than Odoy and five months younger than Mount. The German is showing the kind of state in which he persuaded the Blues to buy him from Bayer Leverkusen, making Lukaku's signing look like a mistake. The £62m worth and the fact that Havertz played four seasons before coming here from Bayer Leverkusen could distort perceptions of his age, but should be taken into account when considering the difficulties he has encountered since moving to Chelsea and the possibilities ahead. He scored two goals in the Premier League win over Burnley 4-0 last weekend and four in his last five games. It was his best goal record as a Chelsea player and, perhaps more crucially, for the first time, Havertz looked like the young genius of yesteryear who had ignited the passion of the Bundesliga.
There are many reasons why it took Havrtz a long time to find the state, the most important of which is that he came here in September 2020, during the pandemic. Havertz was soon infected with the coronavirus, which he said hit him "very badly", and Lampard labeled him as the No. 8 player. Chelsea then broke their transfer record to sign Lukaku. But the German's performance made the acquisition of Romelu Lukaku look more and more like a mistake. This view stems mainly from the fact that Chelsea don't seem to know much about Havertz's technical characteristics, and he is the team's best choice for the No. 9 position at Bayer Leverkusen. This is the position he plays best. He's not an interior striker, Tuchel often forced him into the squad to fit in with Lukaku or Werner, and he's certainly not a midfielder.
Havertz is the best candidate for the pseudo-No. 9 because he likes to pull back from inside the box and cleverly run to the right place in the box, linking a quick offensive and defensive transition with a sharp one-foot touch. It was his thinking and the speed of his movements — and his interpretation of the game — that made Havertz such a rare genius. That's why he's often deployed to a later position on the pitch. The general assumption is that more time playing in areas closer to midfield will give Havertz a greater impact. Contrary to intuition, he is better at running non-stop during the game, playing in tight spaces near the opponent's penalty area: here, his unique passing and moving skills will create more space for others and confuse opposing defenders. It was amazing that it took Tuchel so long to realize that Havrtz was his best striker choice.
The Germany international can carry the ball even under pressure – he has one of the best ball handling skills among Premier League strikers, combined with the speed and acumen with which he interacts with other players, making him the ideal candidate for Tuchel tactics. The premise of Tuchel's tactics is to play very quickly when switching from attack to defense, and to take advantage of the instability of the defensive line after the opponent loses the ball through direct long passes after the sidelines and defensive lines. Havertz knows when to move forward, when to turn around, how to speed up the movement with a simple run or a quick pass, which makes him much more flexible than Lukaku in such a complex strategy. 'He's using his body more and more, he likes to create overload in midfield and that's what he gives us.' Tuchel said after the match against Burnley.
However, Havrts is also a true goalscorer, and in the 2018-19 season he was also a teenager, scoring 17 goals in 34 Bundesliga games. Over the next season, he scored two goals in 14 games and started slowly, scoring eight goals in his final 15 games. This is the misconception that Havertz's shortcomings create, and it's easy to think of him as a pseudo-No. 9 who can score goals, although this may be a contradictory statement. Maybe we'd better think of him as a modern striker, an all-rounder, like Benzema and Harry Kane aren't considered "pseudo-number 9s" because they have a very close connection with midfielders. In fact, Havertz's most recent goals have been goals from traditional strikers: two fantastic headers, a penalty and a goal that hit the far post. Frankly, his sense of position makes it easy to grab a point for Havertz, and at 1.89 meters he is a formidable aerial threat.
However, Havertz is better known for his fast runs in the penalty area, and he cleverly takes advantage of the time difference between defenders to make up for it, so that he is not targeted. This may explain why Lampard did something similar as a player, thinking that Havertz would play at the No. 8 position. "The effort is enormous. He's very efficient," Tuchel said of Haveltz after his 2-0 win over Lille in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16. "The depth and area of the pitch he covered for us was very, very good. He's sharp, creates chances, and never shys away from defending. "It is clear that what impressed Tuchel most was Havltz's ability to press, and it was this diligent effort that became the last piece of the puzzle on Chelsea's attacking end: it shows that Havrec is Tuchel's ideal centre-forward.
Having averaged 8.08 pressures per game near the opposing penalty area, Havretz ranked second in Chelsea behind Mount and significantly higher than Romelu Lukaku's 5.11 per game. Havertz averaged 1.76 tackles and interceptions per game, seven times more than Lukaku's 0.23. In the typical Germanic style, Tuchel's football requires very high-intensity front pressure to win back the ball and use these to complete the offensive conversion. It's no surprise that Havertz, who trained at Bayer Leverkusen, has the qualities that the Chelsea manager wants. When Tuchel took over, the Chelsea board seemed intent on pairing their newly signed German players Werner, Havertz and Pulisic with a manager who knew how to use them. So far, we have only seen the mutual achievements between Tuchel and Havertz, as well as the outstanding performances of the young striker. But over time, coupled with being a solid pick for the team's No. 9 spot, he could be everything Tuchel needs to challenge for the Premier League title next season – and Lukaku isn't everything.