The midfielder who outscores strikers: What Kai Havertz will bring to Chelsea

Bayer Leverkusen sporting director and former German World Cup winner Rudi Voller didn’t mince his words when he was reflecting on the kind of talent Chelsea had just signed in midfielder Kai Havertz.

Voller said the 21-year-old star was “already world class and definitely one of the best players ever to play for Bayer.” An exceptional compliment considering the likes of Arutro Vidal, Dimitar Berbatov, Lucio, Ze Roberto, Heung-min Son, Emre Can and Chelsea’s own Michael Ballack had previously donned the dark red and black of Leverkusen.

However, this wasn’t the cheery words of some old romantic. Havertz may only be entering his fifth season as a senior professional, but he has already shown enough to demand lofty comparisons, a record transfer fee from Chelsea and a key role in Frank Lampard’s new-look team for next season.

Havertz always has and always will be a midfielder that prioritises scoring goals above all else. Leverkusen first became aware of him when he scored three goals against their under-12 side, despite being a year younger than everyone else on the pitch. He then joined the Bundesliga side at the age of 11, before forcing his way into the under-17 side four days after his fifteenth birthday. Then, after 26 goals in just two seasons for the youth side, Havertz was called up to Roger Schmidt’s senior side at the age of 17 years and 126 days - a Bundesliga record at the time.

A number of things have changed since Havertz’s first senior game for Leverkusen - most notably the three managers that have come after Schmidt in that time - but the young midfielder allowed nothing to get in the way of him cementing his role at the centre of the team.

Despite playing in midfield, Havertz has been Leverkusen’s top goalscorer for the last two seasons, outscoring strikers like Lucas Alario and Kevin Volland through his ability to get on the end of plays as well as any penalty-box goalscorer.

Not only did Havertz have more touches in the opposing penalty box last season than any other Leverkusen player but only seven players across the whole Bundesliga managed more than him. Which is an improvement on his twelfth-placed finish last season and goes some way to explaining why all of his 38 goals for Leverkusen over the last two seasons have come inside the box.

Indeed, when we look at the metrics that stand out we can quickly see why the young midfielder has accounted for no less than 22 per cent of Leverkusen’s entire Bundesliga goal tally over the last two campaigns. He finished fourteenth in the division last season for one-on-one dribbles, eighteenth for total shots and again fourteenth for goals. In fact, last season Havertz’s goal conversion rate from shots on target stood at 25 percent - higher than both Olivier Giroud and Tammy Abraham’s at Chelsea.

All of those stats may seem rather impressive in isolation, but when we then weld them together it paints the picture of a young player that has successfully coupled exceptional dribbling, pace and game intelligence with the clinical finishing of a top-class striker.

Of course, that’s not to say Havertz can’t take on the role of playmaker too. The 21-year old grabbed nine assists in 45 games last season and his average of 2.2 key passes per game was bested by just eight midfielders in the Bundesliga.

It’s this range of skills that makes the German international such an exceptional young talent and a nightmare to play against. Some players have pace, some have physicality and some have intelligence. Havertz, so far, seems to have all three. He’s a player that can turn his marker in the centre circle, cut inside from the right flank and play a quick one-two with the striker or simply arrive late to head home a floated cross. And that’s why Chelsea spent so much money on him.

However, while there may be very few question marks surrounding Havertz’s talent there may be some hovering over the issue of where he’ll actually feature in Lampard’s Chelsea side next season. The London club have been exceptionally busy this summer in the transfer window, signing fellow Bundesliga star Timo Werner and Ajax winger Hakim Ziyech along with Havertz, for a squad that is already bursting at the seams with attacking talent.

Although Werner tends to drop into the channels and play as something akin to an inside forward, he’ll still likely start up front. Similarly, Ziyech has shown how adept he is on either wing yet his arrival will almost certainly see him replace Willian on the right wing. And since Chelsea already have Christian Pulisic and Callum Hudson-Odoi on the left, it seems as though Havertz will take up his preferred role as No.10 in Lampard’s side.

That will most likely mean attacking midfielders like Ross Barkley and Mason Mount will have to step aside, despite the latter being Lampard’s second most-used player last season and the club’s fifth highest goalscorer in all competitions. While Mount and others may not have done a whole lot wrong in Lampard’s eyes, the young manager clearly feels as though truly exceptional players are needed to reach his goals. And in the case of Havertz Chelsea have signed one of the very best in the world.