Kai Havertz has promised to help Arsenal win major trophies after completing his £65m switch to the Emirates.
Haverz, 24, has signed a five year deal after joining from Chelsea with Mikel Arteta believing he will be a key addition as he became Arsenal ’s first major signing of the summer. Arsenal are set to smash past the £200m barrier as they look to complete deals for Declan Rice and Jurrien Timber but Havertz is seen as a key player for the future.
Gunners boss Mikel Arteta likes Havertz’s mentality and coping with pressure and expectation from a young age while at Bayer Leverkusen as well as scoring the winner for Chelsea in the Champions League final two years ago.
Another key part of his attraction was his age as Arteta looks to make the squad even younger with the potential to grow while he is also capable of playing as a No8 in midfield as well as being versatile enough to play as a false nine and part of the attack.
Havertz said: “It's super exciting for me to be joining this amazing club and to be part of the Arsenal family. This club has such a big history, and I hope we can achieve lots of things.
“The mentality in the Arsenal squad is very high and you can feel that. That was one of the reasons why it has been so hard to play against Arsenal recently.
“The aim is to win trophies and I’m going to give everything to do that for the supporters and everyone at the club. I'm now looking forward to meeting all the players and the staff when we come back for pre-season.”
The Havertz deal was a surprise move because he has played as a striker for much of his time at Chelsea but earlier in his career he played as an attacking midfielder and Arteta likes his vision and ability to pick passes all over the pitch.
Arteta believes Havertz could even team up with Rice in midfield as part of new duo to succeed Thomas Partey and Granit Xhaka who could both move on this summer.
Arteta also believes that, having helped develop Martin Odegaard in the past two years, he can see similar results and improvement for Havertz as the Arsenal manager and technical director Edu believe is one of the best technical players in Europe. Arteta said: “Kai is a player of top quality.
“He has great versatility and is an intelligent player. He will bring a huge amount of extra strength to our midfield and variety to our play. We welcome Kai and his family to Arsenal Football Club and we are all excited to start working with him when we start pre-season training soon.”
Edu added: “We’re excited to bring Kai to the club and great work by everyone to get this deal complete. Kai is an exciting addition to our squad, who will bring great attacking quality and versatility.
“As an experienced 24-year-old, his signing represents another important step in strengthening our young core of talented players we have at Arsenal. We look forward to working with Kai.”
Havertz also put out an emotional farewell to Chelsea fans on social media to say goodbye minutes before his Arsenal transfer was announced. It comes after Havertz’s new signing video was apparently leaked online before it had been made official.
