It’s Thursday; we still have a few days until the big one at Anfield on Sunday, so the talk about that game should ramp up from today. I became a self-employed worker in September, so I don’t have an office – _per se –_ but I know a few people who said they took pelters for the Fleetwood performance on Tuesday night. I guess that’s the benefit I have; there’s no way Iago (my cat) is going to give me a ribbing because Kai Havertz was a bit shit.
And he was, unfortunately, which isn’t great news or timely ahead of a big game at Anfield. We all know Gyokeres’ limitations; we know that ultimately he’s probably not really technically good enough to play for Arsenal in the long term, but Kai’s downturn in form is a worry to me. He has all the tools to be a quality centre forward; he’s got physicality, he’s decent in the air in the middle of the park, he can hold off defenders, he has an intelligent football brain in terms of his positioning. But sometimes he does miss the odd sitter. And it feels like when he’s out of form, he looks _really_ out of form.
And right now, he does look _really_ out of form. He’s certainly in a bit of a funk, and it’s not that game against Fleetwood that was isolated, because he’s had a few games like that of late. Somebody even asked me when he last had a good game for The Arsenal. I pondered that. Then I decided to have a little look at the last five games we’ve played in all competitions. At Fleetwood, he was bad. He missed chances; he didn’t seem to be able to get into good positions; he only broke the defensive line once to get in behind, and he put that shot wide when he should have scored. But what about other recent games?
Against Everton, he played around 25 minutes, having come on for Gyokeres, who FOTMOB said had a 7.5 game. Kai’s was 6.4 and included two defensive contributions, zero touches in the opposition box, and one pass into the final third. He won two of two ground duels and made four sprints. He was ok, but Arsenal were already a goal up and scored the second goal pretty much as he got on the pitch.
In Bayern, he played 68 minutes, got an xG of 0.56, which isn’t too bad given that in the Premier League this season [Haaland is averaging 0.64 and Isak has 0.61](https://markstats.club/england/2026-2027/players). So for that game, he had decent chances in the minutes he was on the field. He just didn’t take them. He created just one chance; he only had one blocked shot, 23 touches in total, and four touches in the opponent box. That last stat doesn’t worry me as much, because he isn’t a penalty-box striker, but with one pass into the final third and one line-breaking pass, we should probably expect more from our main guy.
In the tight 1-0 win at Forest, he was bad, with again just 24 touches in 66 minutes, 0.33 expected goals, two shots off target, four touches in the opposition box, three line-breaking passes (which isn’t too bad), and one accurate cross from two. FOTMOB has him at 6.4, with only Eze on the day performing worse – and Ebs was hooked at halftime.
The final game in this run of five was the 3-0 win over Lille, in which he played 25 minutes, had 14 touches, got an assist, and created two chances; one of them was a ‘big’ chance. We’d scored just before he came on (Timber’s goal), but he and his other subs definitely made an impact and we won it comfortably. So he definitely had an impact there. But from the start? Maybe Chelsea at home on 6th September?
So when I think about the question, I’ve titled today’s blog as – _Do we need to be worried about Kai Havertz’s form? –_ I do think the answer probably is “yes”. I don’t think we can rely on Big Vik unless he’s got a run of five to six games in a row basically playing 60 – 70 minutes each time, to get back up to a rhythm. So we need Havertz to start affecting and impacting our play more than he does. He’s been fit enough for long enough now for us to know that the previous injuries he’s had _should_ be behind him. But as it stands, we’re going into a massive game away at Anfield, and I genuinely have no idea who should be starting. My gut tells me you have to give to Gyokeres, given he’s had two decent games before Fleetwood, and although he too wasn’t great against Fleetwood, he got his goal, so maybe there’s a bit of confidence he has there. But because we’ve seen the Swede swallowed up by decent defences, I’m still minded to lean towards Havertz. But he _**has**_ to show us more than we’ve got in recent weeks. Maybe he just needs one to go in off his arse?
I wonder if Arteta will be asked about the strikers’ form in tomorrow’s press conference? I certainly would if I were a journalist in the press room. Especially after that showing of bluntness against Fleetwood, which has come relatively quickly after the lacklustre forward display against Forest. If he is asked, he’ll no doubt bat away any criticism, back and defend his players, but behind closed doors, it would surprise me if he _**didn’t**_ have them in the video room today, with his coaching staff asking them questions about how we get more from them.
I’ll be back tomorrow with some more thoughts as we head towards the weekend – catch you kids then.