Player Focus: The form and fixtures of Kai Havertz

Examining Chelsea assets

Following recent looks at Chelsea’s defensive options and midfield dilemma, it’s time to focus on Kai Havertz.

After the first 24 games, the 22-year-old had just two goals, two assists and 12 starts. If that wasn’t a good enough reason for FPL managers to avoid him, he let many down in Gameweek 9.

363,000 had bought him and 179,000 even captained him, expecting this out-of-position asset to step in for the injured Romelu Lukaku and demolish Norwich. The logic was strong. Chelsea did indeed win 7-0. But who was the only member of the starting XI to blank? Kai Havertz, of course.

FPL managers agreed to cry, move on and never mention it again. However, unlike then, he’s now in form. Four goals and an assist from the last three matches, plus scoring against Lille in the Champions League. As the season reaches its climax, Thomas Tuchel doesn’t have time for squad rotation – a confident Havertz is producing, so he keeps playing.

Underlying stats

By playing every minute of Chelsea’s last four matches, it’s a good sample size to see how Havertz compares with everyone else’s most recent four.

Only Mohamed Salah and Cristiano Ronaldo have had more shots on target than the German’s eight, although his ten goal attempts is bettered by 15 others.

Furthermore, Salah, Sadio Mane and Bruno Fernandes are the only midfielders with a higher expected goals (xG) tally during this period.

Fixtures

Of those teams without a Double Gameweek 33 to skew the algorithm, Chelsea have the fourth-best fixtures according to the Season Ticker. Yet they have more games to be rearranged than the three above.

Once Leicester (H) and Leeds (a) are added to this – two of the league’s worst defences in several key statistics – the appeal of Havertz looks hard to resist.

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