• Ornstein says Arsenal scouted Havertz extensively when he was at Leverkusen.

  • Arsenal were in contact with his representatives in 2020, but were not able to pay the price Leverkusen demanded.

  • Havertz popped up on Arsenals radar again around March this year, when he was approaching final 2 years of his contract.

  • Mount, Gundogan and Kudus were looked at in the summer.

  • Arteta was the driving force behind our interest in Havertz. Edu was on board.

  • Bayern were interested in Havertz. Real Madrid wanted to wait and see how things unfolded with Harry Kane first.

  • Once Havertz learned of Arsenals interest, he had a Zoom meeting with Mikel Arteta. After this he was fully comitted to Arsenal.

  • Big difference in how public sees Havertz and how the people working in fotball see Havertz. He is highly rated in the fotball world.

  • Havertz has very good attitude and is “ultra comitted and dedicated” and fotball obsessed to get this right and work with the coaches.

  • His attitude, application and conduct on the training field is excellent. He is a very popular character with players and staff.

  • Ornstein mentions Barella as one CM option this summer, but sounds more like he mentions Barella as one of the midfielders that could have been signed this summer and not that he was somebody we specifically targeted.

  • Havertz base salary is in the region of 275k per week, almost same as at Chelsea.

  • His price/wage might make fans expect a more “glamorous” role from him when in reality his current role is a bit more subtle.

  • Marks the stats guy “Havertz is valued by Arteta for his work off the ball”. Havertz is really intelligent with his defensive positioning and doesnt shy away from a challenge when he needs to.

  • True tackles = Tackles + challenges lost + fouls comitted. A way to see a players tendency to “stick a foot in”

  • When in controlled posession, Havertz with his 6.4 true tackles ranks number 3 in the Arsenal squad. Adds a bite to the team when out of posession.

  • He has 1.4 blocked passses per 90 minutes, second highest in the Arsenal squad.

  • These are not the primary attributes Arsenal have brought him in for, but he has been in an important part in our defense being more solid this season.

  • manc_1011@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    this is a perfect timing for Ornstein to release these info. People who used not to believe in Havertz started to soften up after the goal and this podcast probably makes them fully believe in him, for some people hopefully.

  • codenameana@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I think 2 key points missing from the summary:

    1. Havertz’s roles:
    • He played as a 10 at Leverkusen
    • He was then shifted to a 9 role at Chelsea
    • Arteta now wants him in an 8 role
    1. Odegaard’s roles:
    • He played as a 10
    • He had to learn how to play in the 8 role when he joined Arsenal – it took a while for Odegaard to adjust to it

    For all the comparisons with Declan Rice: Rice played as a 6 at West Ham and is playing as a 6 now.

    Havertz is learning how to play in a whole new role.

    It’s also good to see stats that back-up what some of us have been saying about him contributing defensively off-the-ball (while we acknowledged that he’s not made progress offensively).

    Our players need to feed him the ball. There’s been a visible distrust from players such as Jorginho and Saka eg. not involving him in build-up/passing to him, Saka running back to receive the ball when Havertz is closer and so it’s no wonder he’s deferred so much to other players especially when he’s had good chances to take a shot while in or next to the box.

  • xepa105@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    he had a Zoom meeting with Mikel Arteta. After this he was fully comitted to Arsenal.

    I swear to god, every day I’m glad Arteta went into football/coaching, because otherwise he would be leading the most deadly cult since Charles Manson.

  • KonigSteve@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    he had a Zoom meeting with Mikel Arteta. After this he was fully comitted to Arsenal.

    This could be in the story for every new signing we’ve had since Arteta got here

  • DiuhBEETuss@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Out here doing God’s work. Thanks, OP! It would be really interesting to know how this role he’s excelling at compares with someone like Xhaka prior to last year when he morphed into Goalzilla. I wonder if Arteta has initially prioritized this subtler, off the ball stuff with him on a longer term development track and will start asking him to do more offensive stuff when he settles in a bit more (maybe in a year or two as happened with Xhaka as well).

  • ISSSputnik@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Havertz is a great guy. Don’t hate him. He had my support. But his off the ball contributions isn’t nearly enough to compensate for the opportunity cost lost in bringing in either a To striker, or a great rotation for Saka. He is being paid fast too much for his contribution. And I do think he will improve, but will never reach his Leverkusen heights, forget the potential he was supposed to reach at his peak, as predicted then.

  • buddymurphy2020@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    This! The manager and his staff him every day and know way better than all of us if he deserves to play or not

  • SouplessePlease@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Big difference in how public sees Havertz and how the people working in football see Havertz. He is highly rated in the fotball world.

  • StrayDogPhotography@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    We’ve been defensively decent this season, but our XG is lower than it should be, and we aren’t that entertaining to watch, so Havertz is getting flack.

    Havertz needs to add more creation of opportunities, and goals to get more support of the fans because we don’t see training sessions, or locker room banter. What fans see are games, and there is a noticeable drop of in game performance from the Leverkusen era of his career. I think a lot of this is due to Bundesleague being a lot easier, but also due to his inability to balance his defensive, and offensive duties.

    Hopefully, he starts to add a little fluidity, and risk taking to his play. He has improved this season, but he is still maybe too focused on not making errors over impacting the game positively. As you can see from his goal, the more aggressively he plays in the final third the better.

  • FoggingEstandards@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    “Think of how stupid the average Arsenal supporter is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” George Carlin