Arsenal suffering from exact same Havertz problem Chelsea had - at the same time

Kai Havertz's underwhelming start to life at Arsenal continued on Wednesday night after a dismal display during the 3-1 defeat away at West Ham in the Carabao Cup.

The Germany international played the full 90 minutes but failed to contribute in any meaningful way outside of a few missed half-chances. Havertz struggled to create anything for his fellow attackers, while another game passed him by without a goal for himself.

In the aftermath of such a display, a brutal review from Frank Leboeuf of Havertz's first few months as a Chelsea player has resurfaced and it is eery how fitting the scathing words are when applied to the 24-year-old's start with the Gunners.

The comments from Leboeuf came when Havertz had made 17 appearances for Chelsea back in 2020. Fast forward three years and he has made 15 for Arsenal so far this term, yet the review could have quite easily come straight after full-time at the London Stadium.

"Almost invisible," Leboeuf claimed when asked to describe Havertz's Chelsea start. "I touched on the point some weeks ago. We heard Frank Lampard say, 'No, we need to give him time'.

"But I don’t know, it’s something that I don’t like, the way sometimes it feels like he’s not there, that he’s not trying to compensate for a lack of confidence with a desire or just being a warrior, showing us that, 'okay, I’m not good at the moment, but I’m going to fight for the club and not be invisible.'

"We share texts during the game and we were wondering if he was on the field. You can be bad – [Timo] Werner didn’t have a good game – but we saw him trying to get something going. We don’t see Havertz getting anything. I’m very concerned about that guy."

Gunners boss Mikel Arteta raised plenty of eyebrows when he forked out a