The newly appointed head coach of Chelsea, Thomas Tuchel has backed Kai Havertz. Tuchel has the faith that Havertz has endless potential and has asked him to “show his teeth when it gets tough”.
Havertz was a lucrative buy from Bayer Leverkusen as he joined Timo Werner on record at Stamford Bridge. Frank Lampard expended almost £75million to make Havertz pack his bags for the West London club but he failed to deliver and live up to his expectations under former coach Lampard.
Frank Lampard was struggling to get the best performances out of Havertz and Timo Werner and this became one of the reasons why he was sacked as manager earlier this week. He was replaced by Tuchel, ending the stint of the 18-month managerial phase at Chelsea.
Since the day Tuchel has joined the Blues, he praised Havertz for making the long jump from the Bundesliga to the Premier League at such a young age and also elaborated how different it is coming from a club like Leverkusen to a club like Chelsea that demands the very best performances every time from the player joining.
“His potential is endless, almost endless. It is a challenge for him, and I think he made a very brave choice, you have to understand,” Tuchel said as per football.london news.
“I am a huge fan of Bayer Leverkusen in terms of how they have developed as a club over years and years and what players they developed and what quality of football they play. But, you come from Leverkusen to Chelsea, the culture cannot be any more different. A club where it is OK to maybe be second or third best, to reach the top four and repeat for this on a very high level.”
“Then you go to a club where they talk about trophies and winning titles, it is so open, there is a certain atmosphere like at Bayern Munich they do this every year, they demand titles, titles and more titles and it does something to a club in the atmosphere.
“So that means that Kai has stopped not just to a different country, not only to a different club, not only different teammates, itself is already complicated, he even changes his culture and club environment in a dramatic way. And I love it because he is so far out of his comfort zone.”
Tuchel also confessed that for him Havertz is a player who needs to be pushed to get the best results out of and he cannot entirely dependent on talent alone to become successful in the English League.
Tuchel in his very first game as head coach and manager of Chelsea gave Havertz to play the full 90 minutes in the field against the Wolves on Wednesday. He had almost won it at the death but saw his header deflected wide of the target as Andy Madely blew the full-time whistle to end it with a 0-0 draw.
Tuchel said of his first impression of Havertz: “He seems to be like the guy that needs to be pushed, we will not stop it.”
“For him, this league is perfect because he cannot rest. He has so much potential that he has to be challenged physically also, it is not enough that he can rely on his endless talent.
“In the end, the question is does he have this, can he show his teeth in the end when it gets tough and I was very happy on Wednesday, it was him that did almost the decisive header in the box against all the towers from Wolver Hampton.
“It would have been a nice goal but he did not hesitate and that is what I want to see from him, the rest will come because Kai can be a huge, huge part of this club.”
