Kai Havertz’ pressing stats back up Thomas Tuchel’s comments | OneFootball

Alex Keble has written a good piece for Goal.com about Kai Havertz today, and how the attacker has forced his way into Thomas Tuchel’s plans (once again) as the leading man.

It’s got some nice explanations of how he’s working tactically in this setup, but we really like how he uses advanced scouting metrics to demonstrate Tuchel’s point that Havertz is great at defending from the front.

It was something the manager mentioned a few times when asked about his use of Havertz, and the stats are perhaps even more stark than what you see with your eyes.

Havertz has an average of 8.8 final third pressures per game, not far off doubling Romelu Lukaku’s 5.11. He also gets a 96/100 on the SmarterScout “disrupting moves” metric, thanks to his impressive 1.76 tackles and interceptions per game.

Lukaku’s equivalent is just 0.23, seven times less.

There’s more to playing up front than defending of course, but Lukaku would really have to score a lot to make up for this deficit.