It is quite a rare occurrence for a player to be hated by their own club for so long. The tale of Kai Havertz is certainly interesting, but it just makes sense. When you score a club defining goal, you become a club defining player, regardless of what happened before the moment. Havertz turned contenders into champions and anxious fans into content ones.
While the current gunner is not the “The Special One” when it comes to Premier League Football — that title belongs to Jose Mourinho — his career has certainly been an extremely interesting series of highs and lows. Though Havertz has flourished at times and been mediocre at others, his controversies — igniting Chelsea and Arsenal supporters alike — have never waned. I will explore the defining moments in the German’s career and what brought him to North London today, and analyze five years of sentiment to truly evaluate where Havertz places on the ‘Hate Index’ and discover if he’s truly a “hated player.”
History
After joining their youth academy in 2010, the attacker began his senior career at Leverkusen where he broke multiple young player records within the Bundesliga, becoming the team’s youngest debutant and the league’s youngest goal scorer. The young talent was awarded the Fritz Walter Medal in 2018 as the best U19 German player of the year. His performance attracted the eyes of many clubs around Europe and he transferred to Chelsea Football club for the 2020-21 season for a reported 73.4 million euros.
His goal and assist outputs at Chelsea for the 2020–21 season were extraordinarily low for a price tag that high. Although he played a deeper role to link play, limiting his direct influence in the final third of the pitch, his underwhelming stat sheet led to many fans having doubts.
But in 2021, the Blues qualified for the Champions League final against Manchester City. Havertz scored the only goal in the final, writing his name into the history books for the club. Although his crucial goal certainly quelled fans’ concerns about his overall performance within the league, his stat sheet for the Champions League was underwhelming with the only goal scored in all his appearances being the final goal scored against Manchester City.
In another expensive move, the former Chelsea manager transferred to Arsenal. He began the move to North London in June 2023 for a fee of approximately $65 million. Mikal Arteta — the team manager — was supportive of the acquisition.
From 2023–25 he was one of Arsenal’s leading attackers, but his comments off the pitch regarding his former club still labelled him as a controversial player. He stated that winning the champions league with Arsenal would mean more than with Chelsea and made a shushing gesture in an affront against his former club after scoring a goal that was later disallowed for being offside.
Hate Index Ranking
Clearly, Chelsea fans have the most to be frustrated about the German striker. After analysing over six years and 1000 posts on Reddit using various sentiment analysis libraries, Kai Havertz earned a hate index score of 23. Although controversial during some parts, his overall consistent and successful career has silenced many fans, despite arguably being overpaid by the clubs he’s experienced the most success with.
Havertz’s career certainly appears bright to even the most successful of Premier League clubs. His successful performance has earned him the call up multiple times to the German national team to represent club and country. Havertz’s revival in North London forces the inevitable question: Was he wasted at Chelsea, or did he fail to rise to the occasion?
