Chelsea and Kai Havertz

As a football lover, diving into football journalism is immensely fascinating. Do well to enjoy Matthew's piece on Kai Havertz and Chelsea. 

 Kai Havertz joined Chelsea from Bayer Leverkusen in the 2020 summer transfer window. Many believed the window would be greatly affected by the effects of the covid-19 pandemic, but that doesn't seem to be the case as transactions In Europe's top 5 leagues is over £2Billion (as at the time of writing) coupled with big money transfers including that of Kai Havertz to Chelsea. 

Chelsea's Kai Havertz chase started a year ago while they were banned from making transfers by FIFA. Havertz at the beginning of his transfer saga didn't have Chelsea in mind as much bigger clubs like Real Madrid and Bayern Munich showed signs of interest in him. Obviously, Madrid is a club many players long to play for. Bayern had even tried to give Havertz a sneak peek into where he would fit in the squad, but Bayern's interest began to die out as they publicly announced interest in fellow countryman, Leroy Sane. How then did Chelsea beat other clubs in bringing the 21 year old to West London?

The Covid-19 pandemic might not have hit the transfer market as a whole, but it has hit some clubs real bad. Some clubs dim it unwise to pay a couple of million pounds in this period as shown by the Liverpool Board when they were tipped to sign Timo Werner. Conversely, Chelsea had sold Hazard to Real Madrid for over a £100 million last summer and were unable to sign any player within that time frame. The FIFA ban was a blessing in disguise after all as Chelsea unknowingly saved for the rainy days. This alone had put Chelsea way ahead of other teams who had interest in Havertz who was desperate to leave this summer after Leverkusen failed to qualify for Champions League football. A young lad desperate to leave this summer, the big teams unable to meet his transfer fee and Chelsea, the underdog amongst others knew this was the right time to strike. 

Chelsea signed Timo Werner, a young German Footballer with loads of potentials(just like Havertz) and that sent a message to Havertz. Frank Lampard had a conversation with him telling him he was going to be a huge part of his project at Chelsea.A project full of ambition, attacking football and young talents. Havertz knew he has all it takes to be a part of this project and at the end of the tete à tete, Havertz was convinced Chelsea was the missing piece of his puzzle.

There was one more hurdle for Chelsea, convincing Leverkusen to let go of Havertz at a reasonable price. This was clearly a job for Chelsea's chief Negotiator, Marina Granovskia who is dubbed the "Iron Lady". She met with officials of Leverkusen in the South of France. Granovskia is a very engrossing person and Leverkusen had to develop a thick skin in order not to get carried away by her  fascinating attitude. Leverkusen's asking price was £100 million but we are made to believe Chelsea will pay  less than that. Chelsea have paid an initial fee of close to £70 million and Leverkusen believe they will receive the reminder of the fee later on.

             Marina Granovskia

At the end, Chelsea weren't just pragmatic in their approach for Havertz, they were indeed lucky.

Quick Fact: Timo Werner(Havertz teammate) is pronounced "Timo Verner". I know it's off topic but pardon me. As a football lover, it pisses me off to hear football names pronounced wrongly😂. Visit sm10s.blogspot.com to read more on insidefootball'sdeepest. 

Au revoir😂