Even Havertz’s critics acknowledge that he’s tall, good in the air, strong and technically gifted. On top of that, he’s an excellent passer who often drops deep to receive the ball, a legacy of when he broke into the first team at Bayer Leverkusen as a teenager. Havertz could do so many things, and so well, that he was deployed all over the pitch: Midfield, out wide, up front. Even at Chelsea, he was used in a variety of roles by both both Frank Lampard and Thomas Tuchel before moving to center-forward on a regular basis last season.
Because he was introduced to the world as an attacking midfielder, he got stuck with the “false nine” label, which is frankly rather silly. Harry Kane and Karim Benzema regularly drop deep to set up teammates with passes, yet nobody in their right mind questions whether or not they’re center-forwards. Or, rather, in Benzema’s case, they did when he was younger. Some may remember Jose Mourinho at Real Madrid, after Gonzalo Higuain’s injury, pointing out that while he’d “rather go hunting with a dog, sometimes you don’t have a choice, you need to hunt with a cat.” Benzema was the proverbial feline who turned into a Ballon d’Or winner.
This is not to say that Havertz will turn into Benzema. Rather that when you’re a younger player, coaches sometimes like ready-made boxes in which to put you. It happened to Benzema and it’s now happening to Havertz. Heck, even Kane wasn’t encouraged to drop and be the playmaker when he was younger.
So what’s the issue with Havertz?
Is it the lack of goals? Maybe. Among those who have racked up at least 1,500 minutes this season, he ranks seventh among Premier League center-forwards in non-penalty goals per 90 minutes and sixth in xG per 90. Not great, but not terrible either.
Is it that Chelsea as a team don’t score a lot when he’s up front? Or, more broadly, that they’re just not very good this season when he’s been up front? Now you’re probably getting warmer, and here, the question is whether he’s part of the problem or part of the solution.
