Arsenal star Kai Havertz has been voted the worst signing of the summer in a survey by some of football’s leading agents.
The Germany international joined the Gunners in a slightly surprising move from Chelsea, where he’d done little to impress in his three years on the books at Stamford Bridge.
One agent described the Havertz signing as a “terrible deal” when speaking to The Athletic, who ran the survey, with Chelsea’s Moises Caicedo and Manchester United new-boy Mason Mount also scoring highly.
Havertz hasn’t made the best start to life at the Emirates Stadium, and it’s fair to say he’s going to have to turn things around pretty quickly or people are only going to keep on questioning the wisdom of signing an unconfident underperformer from Chelsea for relatively big money.
The 24-year-old was considered a huge talent during his Bayer Leverkusen days, but it’s just not happened for him in the Premier League, so this result from The Athletic’s survey is far from surprising.
One agent was truly baffled by the deal, telling The Athletic: “Havertz…I don’t get it. I’ve never got it. I don’t think he was needed.
“It’s the luckiest agent in the world to have done that deal and the player to have not had to move very far geographically.
“I would have said that before the season started. When you’re watching (now), you see a lack of quality and confidence.”