“Get over Kai Havertz and drop him to the bench”- Mikel Arteta have been told to drop havertz and unleash £35M gem who is very similar to Cesc Fabregas or else, Arsenal won’t move forward

Arsenal: Arteta must now replace Kai Havertz with magical £34m gem

The Gunners could ditch Kai Havertz by seeking to unleash their £34m maestro.

Arsenal tied up the bulk of their transfer business early on in the summer, as Mikel Arteta and Edu worked tirelessly to bolster their squad whilst also culling plenty of the dead wood too. Their efforts to streamline a squad that came so close to Premier League glory last term were admirable, and despite their unconvincing start to the season, they still sit fifth.

Their latest victory, and easily their most important thus far, saw them strike late to defeat Manchester United at the Emirates, with one of those new signings starring.

With the scores level deep into added time, a looped corner was controlled by Declan Rice at the back post and lashed towards goal. A deflection left Andre Onana wrong-footed, and sent the former West Ham United captain running to his new fans in wild celebration. Gabriel Jesus would add a third to compound such an important 3-1 victory.

Given the efforts made to tempt the 24-year-old from east London, Arteta will be delighted to already see some of that £105m fee paid off as he proved to be the match-winner. They fought off late competition from Manchester City to push his move through, with his role in the coming year set to be imperative.

However, he was not the only of those four new faces that they reportedly had to battle to secure, as Kai Havertz drew interest from Real Madrid, but ultimately opted for Arsenal in a £65m move.

Despite the excitement surrounding his announcement, this is a deal that has drawn intense scrutiny.

Why did Arsenal sign Kai Havertz?

“Havertz is not a striker. I’m not even sure what he is, but he definitely isn’t a striker,” wrote TV personality and Arsenal fan Piers Morgan, who questioned the huge fee expended for such an unproven asset.

This notion was supported by Jamie O’Hara, who would note live on talkSPORT: “What Kai Havertz? He can’t even hit a barn door. He wasn’t good enough for Chelsea so they got rid of him. I am telling you now that Kai Havertz will be a flop at Arsenal. I don’t think it’s going to work out and I don’t think it’s going to fit into their mould.”

His stint at Chelsea had shown little to command such a mouth-watering fee, and yet Arteta has since sought to justify his reasons for bringing in the German international:

“Well he is a player that I admired for a long time and we had the possibility to bring him to the club. I had a few chats about how he was feeling about it and straight away I was so convinced that he’s a player and the type of personality that we want in the team to take us forward.

“He’s so versatile, he’s still very young but with incredible qualities and talent that fits in really well in what we want to do, in what I want to do with the team, and how I want to develop the team.”

Having scored 32 and assisted 15 across 139 appearances at Stamford Bridge, it is worth noting that throughout that period he featured as a lone striker, an attacking midfielder and even a central midfielder at times.

However, his role still seems undefined at the Emirates, despite his 7.05 average rating suggesting it has been a fine start to the latest step in his career. An 89% pass accuracy alongside 1.5 key passes and 1.5 tackles per game, via Sofascore, helps to uphold this figure, and yet still he draws criticism.

Pundit Don Hutchinson even suggests it is the ego of the manager that has seen Havertz retain his place in the side, rather than the solidity and creativity that the maestro has exhibited.

He told BBC 5 Live Sport.: “What’s happened is a manager being stubborn and a manager who has spent an awful lot of money on Kai Havertz and now he’s trying to shoehorn him in and it’s unbalanced them.”

If he is so hell-bent on seeing the former Bayer Leverkusen star displaced, then there can only be one stand-in given the recent form of Fabio Vieira in particular.

How good is Fabio Vieira?

Joining for £34m in the summer of 2022, it is fair to say that Fabio Vieira has failed to begin paying back his lucrative price tag ever since making the move from FC Porto.

Averaging just a 6.70 rating throughout his debut year, his outstanding qualities could not be pinpointed, with just 0.5 key passes and 0.3 tackles per game, as well as a sole goal, via Sofascore. These are coincidentally many of the complaints lobbied at Havertz.

The Portuguese midfielder remained a backup player throughout most of last campaign and seemed set to continue that trend this season if not for a few fine performances from the bench.

Having only made two league appearances this term, averaging 24 minutes a game, he has been economical and incisive when called upon, producing an assist in each game, turning the tide in both fixtures.

Against Fulham, the Portuguese maestro danced around the full-back to first win a penalty, before he set up Eddie Nketiah to put them in front with a delicious teasing ball across the area. Then, after Rice had fired them ahead against the Red Devils, his cute pass through the centre sent Jesus running through on goal to put the game to bed.

It is those moments for which he has been compared to a club icon, with one prominent Arsenal personality declaring that he is “shades of Fabregas and Cazorla.”

It seems that at last Vieira is beginning to realise the immense potential they invested in last summer, with these performances certainly meriting a start. His emergence into the first XI could also come at a good time for Havertz, to take him out of the firing line without weakening the team.

In fact, Joe Cole was particularly effusive in his praise last season after he scored against Bodo/Glimt in Europe, claiming: “What I love about Vieira is that finish is absolutely brimming with confidence. He’s gone ‘I’m going to put it in the roof of the net with my left foot and open the body.’

“Everything he does is with purpose and he’s one of those technicians with an absolute velvet left foot. He’s got the competition in Odegaard but this guy is a fantastic player.”

Whilst this might just be a purple patch, Arteta must surely capitalise on such form by squeezing the creative excellence out of Vieira, even if it means removing one of his big-money summer signings from the side for a few weeks at least.