Agbonlahor slams ‘lost’ Arsenal ace Kai Havertz for ‘slow motion’ displays

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Gabby Agbonlahor has criticised Kai Havertz for his recent performances for Arsenal.

Arsenal slumped to their first defeat of the season against French club Lens in a Champions League face off on Tuesday evening. On an evening when several Arsenal players underperformed, Kai Havertz has now been singled out for being especially poor.

This is not the first time that Havertz has struggled to shine in a match since his £65 million arrival at the Emirates Stadium in the recent summer transfer window. The former Chelsea man looks to be short on confidence, and hasn’t. yet quite adapted to his tactical role in Mikel Arteta’s system.

It is still early days for Havertz at Arsenal, but there are concerning signs that he won’t be able to reliably impose himself on matches. For far too long against Lens, the £280,000-a-week 24-year-old was anonymous.

In some ways he was unfortunate. So much of football is about connections and relationships. Havertz is yet to form a bond on the pitch with Leandro Trossard. The pair struggled to link up against Lens.

Oleksandr Zinchenko having a poor evening also didn’t help Havertz. The Ukrainian full-black is often responsible for advancing the ball into areas where the German can be effective, but wasn’t able to do that often enough.

Time for Havertz to offer more

Overall, though, Havertz simply didn’t offer enough. As per WhoScored statistics for the match, the 39-cap Germany international completed just 19 passes (the least of any Arsenal starter), was dispossessed twice, and won just one aerial duel.

Speaking on TalkSport (04/10/23, 19:40), Gabby Agbonlahor said, “it doesn’t help when you got a player like Havertz that runs around the pitch in slow motion and looks like he is lost.”

Havertz is still finding his feet at Arsenal, but needs to make significant progress soon. He certainly needs to produce a far more impactful performance on Sunday, if he is selected to play against Manchester City at the Emirates Stadium.