Former Chelsea manager Frank Lampard has openly acknowledged that he faced difficulties in finding the right role for Kai Havertz after signing the German midfielder from Bayer Leverkusen.
Lampard successfully convinced Havertz to make the switch from the German Bundesliga to the Premier League, with high hopes that the midfielder would enhance Chelsea’s performances.
However, Havertz’s adaptation to English football didn’t go as smoothly as expected, and for a significant part of his time in London, Chelsea struggled to extract his best form. His most notable contributions at the club came under the management of Thomas Tuchel.
Lampard has now candidly discussed the challenges he encountered in defining roles for some of his players, including Havertz, during his tenure as Chelsea manager.
He said, as quoted by The Sun:
“When we brought players in I had different problems – coaching problems. What’s going to get the best out of Timo Werner, is he a No9?
“We’ve still got Tammy Abraham and Olivier Giroud. Kai Havertz, what’s his best position?
“It was a club recruitment policy, there were players I wanted. Ben Chilwell was big for me.”
Just Arsenal Opinion
Havertz has struggled for several seasons and the German is facing criticism at Arsenal just as it happened at Chelsea.
Mikel Arteta keeps defending his summer signing, but it is hard to be positive about the former Bayer Leverkusen man.
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I believe Lampard, a great player, had problems with nearly every player he managed, so I’m not sure we should lose sleep over this revelation.
The worry will be if MA says the same thing and a fair amount of fans seem to think he should be doing just that.
A little to early for me, but nearly everyone seems to need a scapegoat!!
Frank Lampard was an elite player that tried to cut his teeth in the coaching arena. He immediately garner respect and offer the seductive promise of having been there and done that, he understands the sport, the club, the fans and most importantly how to win as a player.
But the Chelsea legend has gotten a rude awakening,, not because you were a good player dosen’t necessarily translate into a good coach, the jury is still out on Havertz so Lampard utterance cannot be taken seriously as Lampard would still struggle with his own plate of food..
Can’t see Havertz coming good for Arsenal any time soon. I watch him with interest in every game he has played since coming to Arsenal, and I’m trying hard to find something that convinces me that there is some hope with him.
Except perhaps in the Community Shield game when he played the target- man role. I thought he had a fairly decent game even if he fluffed a few good chances.
But as Xhaka replacement? forget it!
The more I watch him play midfield, the more I get annoyed with whoever sanctioned the decision to pay Chelsea so much money for him.
Smells like another Pepe!
Every manager will make a signing that doesn’t come off and at the moment KH hasn’t set the world on fire for our manager. Trossard clicked and so did Timber before his injury. Some players take longer. Just because KH wasn’t an easy fit for Chelsea, one shouldn’t automatically assume the worst at Arsenal
Arteta has to give him a decent run until he reaches the point of no return. Pepe was a case in point. No doubt, not getting such an expensive player to perform as he’d like, MA has limited time to get the light in Havertz’s head turned on. It’s up to Arteta to be a big enough character to make the right decisions.
Managing any player seems to be a problem for Lamps.
I would say MA should just limit KH to cup games and let him play a “chief creator role” in those games instead of playing odegaard, that way he gets mojo back.
I hope KH can mitigate the situation by voluntarily reduce his hefty payroll of £280000 weekly to 50% of it.