Preseason is the rare time in football when the vast majority of football fans take an optimistic outlook on their teams. With new signings, new eras and an opportunity to start afresh, it’s easy to draw the desired the conclusions from what little information there is available. Yet when a player speaks, it holds a little more weight.
Chelsea star Kai Havertz has been doing so lately and appeared highly optimistic about new signing Raheem Sterling. The English forward joined Chelsea for £47.5m after 7 years with Manchester City and at 27, should be entering the prime of his career.
Havertz is of course somewhat familiar with Sterling as an adversary, as he told the Metro.
“We all know that he is a great player I saw a stat about him that he has had the most goals and assists for Man City in the last five years or something like that. That tells the whole story of him.”
“He was a great player for City and the national team as well, hopefully, he can keep up his level here. For me and of course, for everyone, he is going to help.”
“I think in every game you can see that. I know the game against England at the Euros, he played well.”
‘You can see his quality here already and it’s been just a few days. You can see in training how good he is, how fast he is. He is definitely going to help us.”
Chelsea are facing the prospect of a fresh offensive line next season and Sterling looks as if he might be a central part of it. Following the departure of Romelu Lukaku, manager Thomas Tuchel seems to be keen to add versatility rather than a quintessential number nine. Given Havertz’s own talent for finding space, Sterling’s movement could dovetail will with Tuchel’s desired approach.
