How a change in system would help Havertz flourish at Chelsea
With a round of midweek games looming, two teams face off on Tuesday night looking to bounce back from respective 1-0 defeats. Wolves fell to a late Anwar El Ghazi penalty in a home loss at the hands of Midlands rivals Aston Villa, while Chelsea were beaten at Everton courtesy of Gylfi Sigurdsson's early strike from the spot.
Wolves have now lost three of their last five to leave them 13th, while Chelsea's defeat on Merseyside ended an 18-match unbeaten run. Both teams will be looking to get back to winning ways at Molineux on Tuesday evening as they each seek to get their respective campaigns back on track.
For Chelsea, that'll mean their push for the Premier League title. After the 1-0 loss at Everton and results elsewhere going against them, the Blues come into the midweek round of games in fifth, three points off top spot, but know victory at Wolves will see them go top, albeit temporarily.
Unfortunately for head coach Frank Lampard, he comes into the clash with two key wingers absent. Hakim Ziyech and Callum Hudson-Odoi are both sidelined, while Christian Pulisic continues to battle a thigh issue. Lampard has confirmed that the American will travel with the squad in midweek, but he is undecided whether Pulisic will start or not.
And so it could again prove to be that Kai Havertz features from the right flank once more, as he did against Everton on Saturday. However, the German's display was ineffective to say the least. Havertz came away from the defeat with a WhoScored rating of just 6.63 at Goodison Park as he was withdrawn with 20 minutes to play. In six of the 21-year-old's nine league starts he has earned a WhoScored rating below a 7.00.
There was ample pressure on Havertz to hit the ground running on the back of his big money arrival from Bayer Leverkusen. That, combined with a bout of COVID-19, means the youngster has struggled to settle as quickly as many might have hoped following his move to Chelsea, though a young player in a new country - it was never going to be straight forward.
Nevertheless, a system that doesn't play to his strengths hasn't helped Havertz, neither does the abundance of central midfielders at Lampard's disposal. There is a central midfield place up for grabs in his favoured 4-3-3, but the attacking midfielder in the three is currently occupied by Mason Mount, who boasts a WhoScored rating of 7.36 in the Premier League this season, that the second best of all Chelsea players.
As such, Havertz was crowbarred in on the right wing on Saturday, which saw him struggle once more. It's expected that, Pulisic's fitness permitting, Havertz will again feature from the right against Wolves and it wouldn't be a shock to see him falter once more. As things stand, Lampard is unlikely to tinker with his favoured midfield trio of Mount, N'Golo Kante and Mateo Kovacic, which is understandable, but there may yet be a way for the Blues boss to bring Havertz in without wholly disrupting the midfield balance.
In Chelsea's first league game of the campaign, Lampard set his side up in a 4-2-2-2 as the Blues eventually ran out 3-1 winners at Brighton. With a lack of fit natural widemen, this would allow Havertz to operate in a more familiar central role alongside Mount as the attacking midfield two, with Kante and Kovacic used as the anchors.
Crucially still is that it would see Timo Werner line up on the frontline alongside one of Tammy Abraham or Olivier Giroud, but with the German's natural inclination to drift to the left, space is opened up for Havertz or Mount to maximise. The former midfielder's two best rated peformances in a Premier League match this season - 7.75 against Crystal Palace and 7.37 in the draw at West Brom - came when he featured from the off in the number 10 role. His only goal and assist in the Premier League have come in this position where he can maximise his goal getting ability. The German's only perfect 10 performance was in the 6-0 Carabao Cup win over Barnsley where he started in the number 10 role.
Fact is, Havertz isn't mobile enough to operate out wide and in pushing him to the right, it's a waste of the player's talent. In doing so, Lampard is attempting to force a £70m square peg into a round hole, when a minor tactical tweak would help Havertz flourish. Of course, given Chelsea's success in a 4-3-3 setup, one can appreciate Lampard's potential reluctance to tinker with his system, however a relatively narrow attack would present a greater opportunity for full-backs Reece James and Ben Chilwell to bombard upfield to help stretch opponents.
Of course, it is very early days in Havertz's Chelsea career and a young player in a new country and league will take time to bed in. However, Lampard could make the process easier for the big money arrival and moving to a 4-2-2-2 system, starting with the trip to Wolves tonight, would be a huge benefit for Havertz and Chelsea.
