He did do well stopping attacks but the first half miss and sloppy pass for the counter means he will get even more scrutiny unfortunately and when the people around him are so talented it becomes clear when things aren't going quite right, no room for passengers in the team and Xhaka last season was so important in the same role both offensively and defensively.

[–] hangonasecond@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The great news is he has a bit of time to click. Xhaka changed roles when Arteta made changes to the system in his second season, and that year and the next were statistically two of xhakas best in his whole career.

Havertz has played a handful of games in a position he hasn't played much at all since before Chelsea, in a different system and with a different player starting at LB every game so far. We know how important the FB-Winger-8 link up is in this setup (case in point, White, Saka, Ø).

I agree we need Havertz to step up, but we've got a lot of room for optimism.

[–] Mansuke@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Oh definitely, the comparison between the two wasn't a dig at Havertz, just trying to highlight how important the 8 role was for us last season and why our attacks have been lacking a bit of cutting edge and fluidity these past few games.

We've got a lot of room for optimism as a club in general, not just trajectory but when you look at the quality on our bench compared to the past few seasons and the potential of our young squad, we've got it all to come.