I suppose that is an easy thing to believe rather than believe there are plenty of Arsenal fans who don’t think Kai Havertz is a terrible player.
Who’s saying he’s terrible? He’s an elite athlete. I think we can all agree the tools are there. This isn’t a Runnarson situation where the guy is just not a serious professional athlete.
He’s just underwhelmed relative to his transfer fee. Not sure why it’s being treated as some special situation. I think if anything Arsenal supporters, even the online supporters you seem to have so much disdain for, have bent over backwards to see kernels of good in his performances this season. Why else are we talking about him being a linking guy, championing him running to the right position and being there to knock balls down? It’s because we’re all desperately trying make sense of his transfer and how he’s being used.
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That’s my biggest problem with this whole thing.
Obviously he isn’t doing great, but nullifying him as some sort of dud I don’t get. He does a lot of good on the pitch, he’s always available and is able to shift positions seamlessly depending on our game plan.
Of course his role involves more and even Arteta said that he now needs to add to that with goal contributions but there’s a very good base to build on here.
Frankly, I’d be more frustrated if I saw a player that had the numbers in goals and assists but ultimately was inconsistent and wasn’t working hard enough off the ball.
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All that stuff is helpful but is it worth what we paid? I’m not sure right now.
I think it’s really unlucky he’s not been able to play with Jesus much because if his primary job is linking to the front line and not creating or assisting, it’s way easier to play with a guy like Jesus than Eddie.
But the discussion is always going to be relative to the money paid. It’s great that he runs a lot, I’m pretty confident he was bought for more than just that.
I hope he works out, I really do because I think it has to work out given the money spent, the likelihood we missed the window to sell Partey and how Vieira and ESR have failed to cement that position as their own.
Edit: I seriously doubt many would care if he had a combined 5 or 6 goals and assists but lower running numbers, but fair play if you truly feel that way.
Off the ball is a basic requirement for any serious top team
Everyone has to work hard off the ball in a team that actually wants to win
This guy has been in the PL for almost four years and is getting kudos for ruidmentary stuff, never been a consistenly good player since he stepped foot in this country.
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We’re not even halfway through our season yet.
People need to understand that not all moves hit the ground running. Lots of players here and elsewhere took their time, others hit the ground running for 3-4 months and then fell off a cliff.
I think people need to chill. We’re a point off the top in the PL, we’re on course to finish 1st in CL group, and we haven’t even hit our peak yet and that’s not to mention all the absentees.
Sure, and we have yet to see anything remotely resembling a coherent midfield performance from him.
If there were tangible signs that it was improving, even a little, I wouldn’t be critical.
He’s doing it at great level though. He’s doing it even better than Xhaka and Odegaard did before.
If we’re gonna judge him as a midfielder then this is an aspect that we have to take into account.
I don’t see him running the press like Odegaard does. And if he had worse running numbers than Xhaka, I’d be shocked. He’s like seven years younger.
Well to flip the argument around, do we need anything different right now? We’re a point off the top, whatever we’re doing is working. But we agree we want more (eventually) and until we do I will assume that the first thing people will focus on the next time we draw/lose is this guy, no matter what he had to do with it, because if we draw/lose we didn’t score enough goals and if we didn’t score enough goals it’s because Kai wasn’t doing it 
And to clarify, I meant that initially when we start our attack he is a bit of a traffic cone, waiting a bit and biding his time, keeping his responsibilities in case things go awry but looking to pop up at the right time if things go kind of right.
So part-time traffic cone as is intended, is my guess. Not a passenger.
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should say “draw the defenders out”, not exactly traffic cone.
Traffic cone doesn’t do anything at all.
yeah I guess. It’s like he’s playing sin falta football. Maybe he’s been watching Busquets too much
I’ve always been fairly critical of Havertz’s play from the left. From my eye, he does look more at home from the right but there’s still room for growth. The team sent more crosses into the box with varying degrees of success and I think that was an effort to bring Havertz’s qualities into the game.
I still wish he’d pull the trigger when the opportunity presents itself, but maybe he’s not so confident in his ball-striking abilities. So there is room for improvement, but I do feel the goals are closer to materialising.
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He looked best up front imo but I’d be really surprised if that’s why we got him.
We got him to play in midfield mainly but his versatility is also one of the reasons.
When we got him Julien Laurens said that from what he heard his versatility was certainly very appealing to Arsenal.
All three outfield players we signed in the summer are quite versatile to be fair.
Timber can play across the back four, could even play as a #6.
Rice can play as a CB, a #6, an #8, could probably serve as an inverted fullback too.
Agree with @Flexo that he does indeed look better on the right side of the midfield and this was typically the ‘zone’ he operates in at Leverkusen iirc.
It’s game specific however the amount of times Arteta has let Declan run into the channel of the left 8 seems to me that he’s at least flexible in how hard he wants to push this position onto Havertz.
When Øde comes back into the team, I wonder if we can place him onto the left 8 and have Havertz on the right 8.
If that’s the case why has he only really played left eight and been told to be an active traffic cone? That’s not really a job for s versatile player. It’s actually a job for a one dimensional player.
What are you on about? 
He’s played as a left 8, right 8 and striker so far for us.
In fact, there was a game recently he played across all 3 throughout a single game.
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Useless arguing against GC @Joshua, he even notices when a player farts
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He consistently starts at left eight.