Sporting Life
Kai Havertz in action during Bayer Leverkusen's 4-1 win at Werder Bremen
Kai Havertz in action during Bayer Leverkusen's 4-1 win at Werder Bremen

Bundesliga player profile: The stats behind Bayer Leverkusen star Kai Havertz who could be the next big German star

By Paul Macdonald
Football
Sun May 24, 2020 · 4y ago

Kai Havertz is only 20, but he’s experienced the kind of rise, fall and rise again usually reserved for more experienced players.

He scored a brace in successive games to fire Bayer Leverkusen to victory since the season restarted - and the stats suggest he could be the German top flight's next big star.

Four years ago Havertz made his debut for the club as their youngest-ever Bundesliga player, and his first season showed an obvious talent and an instant contribution to the team. Four goals and six assists in 1,449 minutes suggested a player who could make a clear, direct impact on Leverkusen’s approach to the game.

From there the inevitable hype began. His patient development continued in 2017/18 at a club clearly wary of protecting their asset, but from the beginning of 2018/19 the secret was out on the heights that Havertz could reach.

A first call-up to the full Germany squad in the August preceded a season where his numbers would go to another level, all while he was still a teenager. Despite being predominantly a creative attacking midfielder, he struck 17 times in the Bundesliga making him third-top scorer behind Robert Lewandowski (22) and super-sub Paco Alcacer (18). Marco Reus just pipped him to the German Footballer of the Year award but it was clear that a new superstar was emerging.

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It wasn’t just his unique, upright running style and caressing of the ball as he moved that was so eye-catching. It was a level of sophistication rarely seen in one so young. He can play with his back to goal, constantly looking over both shoulders, head on a swivel, knowing where the space is and ghosting into it before his marker knows he is gone. An exquisite first touch helps to keep the ball and bring others into the game, and though his style suggests a laid-back approach, he can sprint as fast as anyone in the Bundesliga. Indeed in 18/19 examples of him running from his space in between the lines into channels or off the last defender are plentiful, and his finishing prowess devastating.

And then, at the beginning of 19/20, everything that Havertz was doing well dissipated. In 1,174 Bundesliga minutes before the winter break, he managed just three goal contributions (two goals and an assist, including two in the one match v Augsburg). An injury in November didn’t help and he sat on the bench while his side went away to Bayern Munich and won 2-1. His frustration at not meeting expectations was palpable, but an insight into the type of personality Havertz is came during his lowest point.

He said: "Last season was like a benchmark for me, so it has been difficult to keep pace with this. These are phases that shape you as a player and as a person.

"You learn the most in these situations, and I think it was the first time in my career that praise wasn't constantly being heaped on me. The things being written about me weren't all positive, but things like that do not hold me back, and I'll just try to prove myself again.”

He knew he had been below his own standard, and rectified it. He worked hard and the results came - and this level of mental fortitude is often drastically overlooked. His FC Rating clearly represents his bounce back to brilliance; from a rating of 78 in January, he jumped to his current level of 91 in the space of just two months of football. Four goals and four assists in just 776 minutes showed the Havertz of old, while three goals and two assists in 270 minutes of Europa League football solidified his return. Between Christmas and March 12, in all competitions, he returned a goal contribution every 75 minutes.

And if anyone suspected that he was merely on a hot streak, he re-announced himself following the end of the Bundesliga's two-month hiatus by scoring two first-half goals in Leverkusen 4-1 thrashing of Werder.

Another development of Havertz's game is his increase in Big Chances Created P90 to 0.6, which is top 10 in the division and his total of eight assists in all competitions is his best return to date, with still a third of the season to play. It’s also worth noting that Havertz’s Expected Assists (xA) in the Bundesliga is 7.75 versus five actual, meaning he is underperforming on that number and probably should have more assists than he currently has. Furthermore his xA P90 of 0.37 places him in fifth in the league for players who have played > 1,000 mins, behind Thomas Muller, Serge Gnabry, Christopher Nkunku and Jadon Sancho - pretty decent company to be in.

There are one or two caveats - for a free-scoring attacker he doesn’t hit anywhere near as many shots as his contemporaries, his 1.7 P90 not even in the top 100 in the Bundesliga. For a player of his ability, he should probably be shooting more, and he clearly has the match intelligence to understand where to shoot from for maximum impact considering his shooting map has few efforts from outside the area.

But it’s a minor complaint. It’s satisfying to see a player survive his first spell of criticism and emerge on the other side all the stronger for it.

More than that, Kai Havertz is now a player people are really talking about.

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