Kai Havertz of Chelsea was the starman in the Premier League match involving Chelsea and Crystal Palace on Saturday, April 10, 2021. The 21-year-old German attacking midfielder scored a goal and provided an assist in Chelsea’s 4-1 away victory over Crystal Palace.
Kai Havertz has been a subject of criticism since he made his big-money move from Bayer Leverkusen to London last summer due to his inconsistent form. Recall that Chelsea paid a whopping £70 million to bring the 21-year-old attacking midfielder to the club with the hope that the promising star would continue with the brilliant form he showcased while in Germany.
Unfortunately for Chelsea, Kai Havertz has been struggling at the club which made him play mostly from the bench or being left out of the team on some occasions.
But the German star who has managed to score just a goal and provided 4 assists in 22 games before Chelsea’s game against Crystal Palace on Saturday, proved that he still got that special skills that attracted Chelsea to him less than a year ago.
He scored Chelsea’s first goal in the game played at Selhurst Park in the 8th minute of the first half. He went on to assist Christian Pulisic to score Chelsea’s second goal of the game in the 10th minute.
The club’s defender Kurt Zouma made it 3-0 in the 30th minute. While in the second half, Crystal Palace attempted to fight back but the best they were able to get was a goal, thanks to Christian Benteke’s header in the 63rd minute.
Crystal Palace’s hope of coming back into the game was cut short when Pulisic stepped up to score his second goal of the game to end the match 4-1 in favor of the visitors.
Kai Havertz vs Crystal Palace. #cfc pic.twitter.com/TeZAnscwn3
— 𝙅𝙧. 🇰🇿 (@branojr) April 10, 2021
“[Kai Havertz] maybe should’ve scored more, he had more chances,” Tuchel told BBC after the game. “He can still improve his hunger and determination.
“He has outstanding quality. He’s not the leader of this team and he doesn’t have to be. He had excellent runs and he could’ve scored more.”
While the coach of Crystal Palace, Roy Hodgson said: “We know they are a good side, everybody knows that, but we can’t afford to play the way we did in the first half.
“Both of the first two goals came about through balls lost near our own goal. Suddenly they find themselves 2-0 up after 10-11 minutes. We needed to defend well and make good decisions.
“How many teams can come back from 3-0 down against this Chelsea team? To give some credit the players did better in the second half and showed some fight in them but the bottom line is we played against a Chelsea team that we believed we could stretch and we’re on the back end of a 4-1 defeat and needed to do some last-ditch defending to keep it down to four.”
The win over Crystal Palace on Saturday has returned Chelsea to 4th place on the league table with 54 points in 31 games after recording 15 wins, 9 draws, and 7 defeats. They will remain at the spot a bit longer if 6th placed West Ham United fail to win their outstanding game against Leicester City later today, April 11, at 14:05.
If West Ham win over the 3rd placed Leicester City, they will return to the 4th spot while Chelsea will return to 5th with a point behind West Ham.
