Good on Frank to back the youngster after the horror show against Everton and to give him the opportunity to prove the critics wrong but unfortunately it hasn't worked. I think it may be time to drop him and let him gain his confidence back off the bench and in the FA Cup.

13 hours ago, IliyaKrostin said:

Another performance where he failed to show the basic things of a footballer. 

Play him from the bench, or play him at the position he used to play in Leverkusen.

N.10 or 2nd striker. 

He's killing his confidence, fans are losing their faith, the amount we paid for him just makes it worse. We're about to lose a very talented player and I really don't want another De Bruyne situation.

When he signed for us he did an interview where he was asked about his versatility but what is his best position and his answer was a right sided Number 8, I agree he needs to be taken out of the firing line and needs to start off the bench.

I don't buy the argument he is being played out of position considering one of the main reasons we brought him was due to his versatility.

I am not in the "drop him" camp.  Any middle three of Kante, Jorgi, Mount, Billy and Kova are not creative enough.  I think we need Havertz's creativity in the middle  - and we need to persevere. I believe that our slow build up play of late is stifling him (as it is Werner). With more pace/urgency, there is more movement, and this creates space. Havertz can exploit that. Constantly recycling the ball to our CBs is the downfall of our team.

32 minutes ago, nonotnowjim said:

I am not in the "drop him" camp.  Any middle three of Kante, Jorgi, Mount, Billy and Kova are not creative enough.  I think we need Havertz's creativity in the middle  - and we need to persevere. I believe that our slow build up play of late is stifling him (as it is Werner). With more pace/urgency, there is more movement, and this creates space. Havertz can exploit that. Constantly recycling the ball to our CBs is the downfall of our team.

We are yet to see any creativity from him though. At least in the league. He's got one assist but that's about it. I can't remember any brilliant passes where he was let down by poor finishing either.

Right now Havertz is giving us very, very little on either end. He's not good defensively and he doesn't impact offensively. To be honest he reminds me of Pogba at his worst. Bit of a liability in midfield, prone to giving the ball away and a bit lazy.

It's harsh and i have high hopes for Havertz but i have to call a spade a spade.

35 minutes ago, nonotnowjim said:

I am not in the "drop him" camp.  Any middle three of Kante, Jorgi, Mount, Billy and Kova are not creative enough.  I think we need Havertz's creativity in the middle  - and we need to persevere. I believe that our slow build up play of late is stifling him (as it is Werner). With more pace/urgency, there is more movement, and this creates space. Havertz can exploit that. Constantly recycling the ball to our CBs is the downfall of our team.

I agree...when there is creativity. What evidence has there been so far? The reason Havertz' body language looks so effortless, as the pundits like to continually say, is because it is accurate. there appears to be little if any effort. We have players in the stands and on loan who have provided more and have been slated on this forum, including by me, for not being good enough at this level (RLC for example).

I said the same about CHO and i think it applies here, if we have designs on any form of success we cannot afford to use our first team as a proving ground for out of form players to come good. There are enough opportunities in an around the club to work on form and try to get back in the groove before reappearing on the big stage. The starting 11 must comprise of the fittest and most in form players that we have that meet the tactical formation requirements.

If it wasn't for some of the lockdown calamities some of our rivals have experienced this season we could feasibly already have been discounting our chances of any form of domestic success.

18 hours ago, Gol15 said:

clearly Lampard isn't using them properly.

This sounds dangerously like "Torres is pants because Malouda won't pass to him."

1 hour ago, WhiteWall said:

I agree...when there is creativity. What evidence has there been so far? The reason Havertz' body language looks so effortless, as the pundits like to continually say, is because it is accurate. there appears to be little if any effort. We have players in the stands and on loan who have provided more and have been slated on this forum, including by me, for not being good enough at this level (RLC for example).

I said the same about CHO and i think it applies here, if we have designs on any form of success we cannot afford to use our first team as a proving ground for out of form players to come good. There are enough opportunities in an around the club to work on form and try to get back in the groove before reappearing on the big stage. The starting 11 must comprise of the fittest and most in form players that we have that meet the tactical formation requirements.

If it wasn't for some of the lockdown calamities some of our rivals have experienced this season we could feasibly already have been discounting our chances of any form of domestic success.

I agree players should always be picked on merit versus reputation. At present Kai is woefully out of form and should be on the bench. If it wasn't for our injury issues with wingers I would expect that to be the case. I think the challenge Frank has is that he doesn't really have too many creative options to replace him with who are fit. I know some of commented on the strength of our squad this season and it certainly has more depth than last season (that wouldn't be difficult) but I still think we need one more winger, especially given the injury-prone players we have in those positions. 

If we are not patient with a generational talent we might regret it like with KDB. Mount and Kovacic also needed some time to get into it when they were in their own first season.

So learn from the past and give Kai enough time to settle in because he is the future. I wouldn't mind to see him coming from the bench as a striker or as the n.10 player, just give him the freedom he needs to move around and enjoy, I can say the same thing about Werner, put him in the CF position and let him do his thing.

 

Edited December 16, 20205 yr by Gol15

A lot of people are panicking already because of the price tag, lets face it unless Havertz hit the ground running with a goal or an assist in every game he was always going to get criticism from some quarters.

Get off the Kid's back, and thats exactly what he is, he's 21. I get so annoyed when i read negative stuff, rubbish that's going to do his confidence no good whatsoever.

None of us know how badly Covid has affected him, on top of that he's trying to adjust to the difference of the English game, he has a laid back style, which in the high paced premier league gets snuffed out very quickly.

He has to learn to adapt his style, he wont get the time on the ball that he was afforded in Germany, you can see in his play in the last few games that he's being hurried and passes are going astray. Nobody will know this more than himself, the kid needs time and most importantly backing from his colleagues and supporters.

The last thing we want is for him to become unsettled.

7 minutes ago, Osgoodwasgood said:

A lot of people are panicking already because of the price tag, lets face it unless Havertz hit the ground running with a goal or an assist in every game he was always going to get criticism from some quarters.

Get off the Kid's back, and thats exactly what he is, he's 21. I get so annoyed when i read negative stuff, rubbish that's going to do his confidence no good whatsoever.

None of us know how badly Covid has affected him, on top of that he's trying to adjust to the difference of the English game, he has a laid back style, which in the high paced premier league gets snuffed out very quickly.

He has to learn to adapt his style, he wont get the time on the ball that he was afforded in Germany, you can see in his play in the last few games that he's being hurried and passes are going astray. Nobody will know this more than himself, the kid needs time and most importantly backing from his colleagues and supporters.

The last thing we want is for him to become unsettled.

Isn't that exactly the sort of thing that was being said about SWP or Kezman back in the day though?  Come to think of it, Morata was getting some of that sort of backing early on, and, after a  flashyish start, we were all waiting for Oscar to come good as he was touted as "the next new shiny thing"

1 minute ago, yorkleyblue said:

Isn't that exactly the sort of thing that was being said about SWP or Kezman back in the day though?  Come to think of it, Morata was getting some of that sort of backing early on, and, after a  flashyish start, we were all waiting for Oscar to come good as he was touted as "the next new shiny thing"

Yes it's exactly the same Kezman and Oscar also didn't have a pre-season and had covid-05 and 012 respectively 

13 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

Yes it's exactly the same Kezman and Oscar also didn't have a pre-season and had covid-05 and 012 respectively 

don't be such a prick.

1 minute ago, yorkleyblue said:

don't be such a prick.

27 minutes ago, yorkleyblue said:

Isn't that exactly the sort of thing that was being said about SWP or Kezman back in the day though?  Come to think of it, Morata was getting some of that sort of backing early on, and, after a  flashyish start, we were all waiting for Oscar to come good as he was touted as "the next new shiny thing"

So what are you going to do then, Criticise the bloke to the point that he wants to leave and he comes back to haunt us like KD and Salah

1 hour ago, Gol15 said:

If we are not patient with a generational talent

 

Have you watched Havertz in the Bundesliga? If yes tell me why he is a generational talent. If no, why are you calling him a generational talent?

I am not saying he is or is not that "generational talent" (whatever that is) but lets be honest none of us really watched him play before coming here.

1 minute ago, reparto corse said:

Have you watched Havertz in the Bundesliga? If yes tell me why he is a generational talent. If no, why are you calling him a generational talent?

I am not saying he is or is not that "generational talent" (whatever that is) but lets be honest none of us really watched him play before coming here.

I did watch him playing for Leverkusen and Germany before we signed him. He was for me at the time the second biggest newer talent, after Sancho.

I didn't know that you didn't see him before he was signed, he was basically one of the best 20 year-olds in whole Europe, there is a reason why his price tag was so high. He scored 18 goals and had 9 assists last season, I think only 1 player around his age did better than him, Mbappe. Kai was in the Europa League squad of the season and in the Champions league breakthrough team of the year.

He is projected to be one of the best players in the future, similar to how Pulisic was projected to be one of the best as well but he has been struggling with injuries, sadly.

This doesn't change the fact that he did nothing against Wolves but if you are capable to see the big picture, we got ourselves a very special player that can solve a game by himself, he just needs some time that's all.

There are some good videos posted in this thread but it's over 90 pages long so in case you're interested you can watch some of his highlights here so that you don't need to search through so many pages of this thread:

 

 

Additionally here are some graphs that show how he did last season that made us sign him:

 

 

1 hour ago, Osgoodwasgood said:

So what are you going to do then, Criticise the bloke to the point that he wants to leave and he comes back to haunt us like KD and Salah

Not sure Kai gives a s*** about what YB or anyone else thinks on this forum lol. I dont see nothing wrong if posters on a forum want to acknowledge the poor performances of a player and whether he should be starting or not. Happens to every player.

1 hour ago, Gol15 said:

I did watch him playing for Leverkusen and Germany before we signed him. He was for me at the time the second biggest newer talent, after Sancho.

I didn't know that you didn't see him before he was signed, he was basically one of the best 20 year-olds in whole Europe, there is a reason why his price tag was so high. He scored 18 goals and had 9 assists last season, I think only 1 player around his age did better than him, Mbappe. Kai was in the Europa League squad of the season and in the Champions league breakthrough team of the year.

He is projected to be one of the best players in the future, similar to how Pulisic was projected to be one of the best as well but he has been struggling with injuries, sadly.

This doesn't change the fact that he did nothing against Wolves but if you are capable to see the big picture, we got ourselves a very special player that can solve a game by himself, he just needs some time that's all.

There are some good videos posted in this thread but it's over 90 pages long so in case you're interested you can watch some of his highlights here so that you don't need to search through so many pages of this thread:

 

 

Additionally here are some graphs that show how he did last season that made us sign him:

 

 

@yorkleyblueDid you get all this? 

1 hour ago, Gol15 said:

I did watch him playing for Leverkusen and Germany before we signed him. He was for me at the time the second biggest newer talent, after Sancho.

I didn't know that you didn't see him before he was signed, he was basically one of the best 20 year-olds in whole Europe, there is a reason why his price tag was so high. He scored 18 goals and had 9 assists last season, I think only 1 player around his age did better than him, Mbappe. Kai was in the Europa League squad of the season and in the Champions league breakthrough team of the year.

He is projected to be one of the best players in the future, similar to how Pulisic was projected to be one of the best as well but he has been struggling with injuries, sadly.

This doesn't change the fact that he did nothing against Wolves but if you are capable to see the big picture, we got ourselves a very special player that can solve a game by himself, he just needs some time that's all.

There are some good videos posted in this thread but it's over 90 pages long so in case you're interested you can watch some of his highlights here so that you don't need to search through so many pages of this thread:

 

 

Additionally here are some graphs that show how he did last season that made us sign him:

 

 

Great. But he can't even do very simple things like complete a 3 yard pass to his teammate's feet when there is no pressure or slightly more difficult skills like winning a 50/50 ball or beating a player. I get it takes time to adapt to the EPL, I've heard this for 20 years now, but I think these are pretty basic skills that players in the Bundesliga have too. I really hope he becomes a success for us in the future as he is an exciting talent that I wanted at the Bridge but I don't want to see him anywhere near the starting XI until we play Morecambe and Fulham in a month. 

I'm sure Havertz will come good (at least I pray he will). It is still early days and he is young but I can't recall the last time I was so underwhelmed by a major signing after 3-4 months.

Really thought he was going to make the difference. Last season when we struggled to break teams down, I thought the introduction of Havertz would be that missing ingredient and bring that bit of magic. New signings can always take time to adjust but you normally see something to make you think - "yeah, he's gonna be special". Saw it early on with Hazard and Mata and even Oscar, but bar the hat-trick against mighty Barnsley, I have yet to see anything from Havertz that gets the pulses racing.

Think even with Ziyech (who HAS impressed) and CHO injured, it would be best to sideline Havertz for a bit and wait for him to fully recover and see if he can make a difference from the bench.

 

43 minutes ago, Butterhampton FC said:

Great. But he can't even do very simple things like complete a 3 yard pass to his teammate's feet when there is no pressure or slightly more difficult skills like winning a 50/50 ball or beating a player. I get it takes time to adapt to the EPL, I've heard this for 20 years now, but I think these are pretty basic skills that players in the Bundesliga have too. I really hope he becomes a success for us in the future as he is an exciting talent that I wanted at the Bridge but I don't want to see him anywhere near the starting XI until we play Morecambe and Fulham in a month. 

Okay but this was about how he was before he joined us, the person I answered didn't see what Kai is capable of doing.

It can't be that Werner and Havertz were so good before they joined us and that from now on they are just average players out of nowhere.

It's obviously other factors that so far have prevented them to perform in the most recent games but they are top talents and good players, the handful of games where Kai played as the AM for us he delivered, he has assisted from open play more than Mount actually.

 

6 hours ago, yorkleyblue said:

This sounds dangerously like "Torres is pants because Malouda won't pass to him."

That’s true though. Mainly because Malouda was pants and nobody would pass to him either. 

13 hours ago, Gol15 said:

I did watch him playing for Leverkusen and Germany before we signed him. He was for me at the time the second biggest newer talent, after Sancho.

I didn't know that you didn't see him before he was signed, he was basically one of the best 20 year-olds in whole Europe, there is a reason why his price tag was so high. He scored 18 goals and had 9 assists last season, I think only 1 player around his age did better than him, Mbappe. Kai was in the Europa League squad of the season and in the Champions league breakthrough team of the year.

He is projected to be one of the best players in the future, similar to how Pulisic was projected to be one of the best as well but he has been struggling with injuries, sadly.

This doesn't change the fact that he did nothing against Wolves but if you are capable to see the big picture, we got ourselves a very special player that can solve a game by himself, he just needs some time that's all.

There are some good videos posted in this thread but it's over 90 pages long so in case you're interested you can watch some of his highlights here so that you don't need to search through so many pages of this thread:

Additionally here are some graphs that show how he did last season that made us sign him:

Highlight videos are meaningless. There are video compilations of Kepa  that make it seem like he is world-class. 

The graphs make no sense to me. I have no idea what this stuff is supposed to say and I don't know why this is used as an argument for why he is a "world-class generational talent". I work a lot with statistics in my job and especially the first graph is complete garbage. It looks like something someone would create to fool naive people on social media. 

What in the world is "recieving in the box" - 31 - adjusted to premier league standards - supposed to prove for example? 

Does that mean the average value is 50 (or 100? or 0?) and he is below/above average at "recieving in the box" (WHAT does that even mean??) 

You watched him play for Leverkusen so obviously you must know more than me. 

He played a total of 45 games last year so 18 goals and 9 assists against mostly trash opposition teams in the Bundesliga isn't very convincing for me either to be honest.  

 

Edited December 17, 20205 yr by reparto corse

17 minutes ago, reparto corse said:

Highlight videos are meaningless. There are video compilations of Kepa  that make it seem like he is world-class. 

The graphs make no sense to me. I have no idea what this stuff is supposed to say and I don't know why this is used as an argument for why he is a "world-class generational talent". I work a lot with statistics in my job and especially the first graph is complete garbage. It looks like something someone would create to fool naive people on social media. 

What in the world is "recieving in the box" - 31 - adjusted to premier league standards - supposed to prove for example? 

Does that mean the average value is 50 (or 100? or 0?) and he is below/above average at "recieving in the box" (WHAT does that even mean??) 

You watched him play for Leverkusen so obviously you must know more than me. 

He played a total of 45 games last year so 18 goals and 9 assists against mostly trash opposition teams in the Bundesliga isn't very convincing for me either to be honest.  

 

OK well sorry then, I just wanted to help out, those videos show what he is capable of so you that didn't even know why we signed him could get a glimpse of why Lampard wanted him in the first place he didn't come here out of nowhere.

You might not see anything at all there as an indication of his quality but make no mistake there is a good reason why we signed him and why he is valued so high.

The reality is he is a very appreciated player, it can't be that everyone got it wrong about Kai and Timo because both clearly showed just how good they are. Lampard isn't stupid he wouldn't have pushed for their signings otherwise either.

45 games 18 goals, 9 assists for a 20 year old, think about it Mount was the same age last season when he played over 50 games in total and he didn't have double figures. This is why he is a generational talent, you won't find that many players that look so mature at 20 years old as he has done last season.

 

16 hours ago, Osgoodwasgood said:

So what are you going to do then, Criticise the bloke to the point that he wants to leave and he comes back to haunt us like KD and Salah

Firstly, I'm relatively confident that he isn't reading this forum, and, even if he is, he is as aware as we all are that he has mostly been a bit naff so far, and has on occasions directly cost us goals against. 

Keep him out of the starting lineup until the FA Cup and let him get his head right.  I have said all along that he may well be the next {enter name of whoever you consider best ever player} but so far, in a Chelsea shirt he has shown nothing at all to warrant a place in the team.  We can't afford to wait several months for him to be able to play a simple 5-yard pass to a team mate consistently.

13 hours ago, Slojo said:

@yorkleyblueDid you get all this? 

I did mate, I have downloaded it all and am working through it forensically so that I can enhance my Havertz education enough to enable me to join the cult of blind adoration.

 

(Not sure about some of the graphics, though, that look like some sort of primary school art project with crayons and glitter)