Mikel Arteta says Kai Havertz has been “a huge miss” this season, but the forward is pushing hard to be involved in Tuesday’s Champions League semi-final second leg against Atletico Madrid.
The Germany international had put together a run of 13 consecutive appearances, seven starts and six from the bench, before pulling up with a muscular problem in the first half of last weekend’s win over Newcastle. He is set to sit out a second game this week when Fulham visit the Emirates tomorrow.
Having already missed the opening four months of the campaign while recovering from knee surgery, and with the club managing his return carefully, the latest setback is another frustrating moment for a player who also saw the second half of last season wrecked by a hamstring tear.
“He’s been a huge miss,” [said Arteta](https://www.arsenal.com/news/every-word-artetas-pre-fulham-presser-0) about the former Chelsea man. “We’re talking about one of the most important attacking players we have, and he’s been out for seven or eight months.
“Unfortunately, he’s not been the only one with long-term injuries and players who have been missed. The team has shown an incredible capacity to overcome these kinds of scenarios and still be very, very competitive.”
At the end of the season, Havertz will be three years into his five-year deal at the Emirates. It is usually the point when extension talks begin, though there has been little noise on that front so far.
Asked about the player’s future, Arteta said: “The focus right now has to be on availability and performance, and Kai is desperate to be on the pitch as quickly as possible.
“Hopefully for Atletico, he will be available, and he’s pushing every boundary to achieve that.”
If Havertz’s season has been stop-start, Declan Rice has been the opposite. Ever-present, adaptable, and increasingly influential, he continues to take on whatever role Arteta asks of him.
At the Metropolitano on Wednesday, he made his 50th appearance of the season and looked comfortable dropping between Gabriel and William Saliba to operate as a deep-lying playmaker. It is a role more often filled by Martin Zubimendi, who instead pushed higher up the pitch.
The approach worked well, particularly in the first half, and it will be interesting to see if it is used again.
Explaining the tactical tweak, Arteta said: “Every opponent has its things, and we believe that in the last game, that was the best way to hurt them: find spaces, find time and surprise them with certain movements. In relation to the opponent, we can change that, and having the variability and options to do so with our midfielders, I think, is something positive for the team.”
He added: “What we need are players who can occupy any position on the field. Modern football is going in that direction. When you’re a midfielder, you’re a midfielder – not a six, eight or 10.
“If we want a total team, we’d better have total players to do that, to be comfortable and dominant in any area of the pitch, to dominate every phase of play. Declan is certainly evolving in that direction.”
With Arsenal on the verge of a potentially historic season, Arteta’s focus is on the collective rather than individual honours. Even so, when it was suggested Rice could be in contention for player of the season awards, the manager was full of praise.
“What Declan is doing again is incredible. To play the amount of games, minutes with the quality that he’s shown in every game is something extremely difficult to do, and he’s doing it, not only this season, but the last few seasons that he’s been with us.
“To show that level of consistency is extremely rare because the demands and the standards are very, very high.”
Rice and Havertz, one ever-present, one stop-start, but both capable of shaping the run-in…if Arsenal can get them on the pitch together.