Arsenal face €75m Kai Havertz dilemma after fresh injury setback

Kai Havertz’s latest injury setback raises fresh questions over the Arsenal star’s future, with the German having barely played any football this season.

Havertz is becoming a €75 million conundrum for Mikel Arteta. The Gunners boss is known to love the versatility that the German brings to his side – but he simply cannot get the former Chelsea man onto the field.

The 26-year-old has only played 253 minutes of football this season, and these will not be added to in Thursday’s Premier League clash with Brentford. Havertz will miss that encounter with a muscle injury, with BBC Sport reporting that he could sit out the next four games – including the critical North London derby with Tottenham.

Kai Havertz: A summer crossroads looms

Arsenal are planning new contract talks with Havertz, as revealed exclusively by FootballTransfers at the beginning of January.

His contract expires in 2028, giving the Gunners plenty of time to plan, yet interest from Bayern Munich also looms. The Bundesliga side are reportedly willing to pay €75m for the attacker. This is the same fee that Arsenal paid Chelsea to sign Havertz in the summer of 2023, but it is also substantially above his current Estimated Transfer Value (ETV) of €59.2m.

Selling now offers the Gunners the chance to break even on the player but would throw up a new problem: how to replace a tactically unique player?

Injury woes add to doubts

Havertz’s ability to bounce back from the knee problem that saw him sidelined for more than four months after picking it up on the opening day of the Premier League season against Manchester United is likely to be instructive to Arsenal’s plans.

Coming back from such a lengthy absence is rarely a linear process, but for the former Bayer Leverkusen player to have picked up another muscular problem so rapidly does not bode well. By the end of the month, there is every chance he will have failed to add to his minutes.

Havertz also missed the conclusion of last season, so over the course of a year, he has barely played four hours of competitive football. With a direct hand in a goal every 63 minutes of his little time on the park, he has proven himself to be an asset, but this has been offset by how often he has required treatment.

There is little doubt that he is a durability risk, and this is something that will need to be considered when contract talks are opened.

Do Arsenal extend and protect value?

The odds are still in Havertz’s favour – largely because Arteta is a devout fan of the player.

Indeed, the forward’s ability to make an instant impact on the team despite his injury setbacks only seems to have stiffened the manager’s resolve.

Speaking in January after Arsenal beat Kairat in the Champions League, the manager said: “The team knows how important Kai is for us and how he can help the team to be much better and take the team to another level.

“So, the fact that he was able to do that today after such a long time was very impressive.”

Arteta’s loyalty is clear, but so too has been his ruthlessness in the past. At some point, he will have to decide whether Havertz’s tactical value outweighs his physical fragility.

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