William Gallas has praised Martin Odegaard for handing Kai Havertz his penalty against Bournemouth, but the former Gunner doesn’t have faith in the German international.
Kai Havertz scored his first goal for Arsenal in last weekend’s Premier League fixture against Bournemouth, taking on a penalty despite Martin Odegaard and Bukayo Saka still being on the pitch as alternatives.
William Gallas has praised Odegaard for the captain’s decision to give the spot-kick to his new teammate.
“I thought that was a good decision,” Gallas said. “That was the decision of a gentleman. Martin Odegaard is a gentleman.
“That shows you how concerned Odegaard is about his teammates and the relationship that he has with them.
“He knows that it has been a difficult start to Havertz’s Arsenal career. Havertz didn’t score any goals in his matches so far. It was the perfect thing for a captain to do in that situation.”
On the other hand, Gallas still believes Havertz isn’t going to be a success in north London.
“They paid a lot of money for him and before his penalty, he did absolutely nothing for Arsenal so far,” Gallas argued.
“After almost two months he did nothing. He scored his penalty, but without that, he hasn’t done anything. The fans expect more from him.
“I think he is still adapting to the way that Arsenal play and his role in the team. The football is completely different (to what he was used to at Chelsea).
“He has to work really hard, but I’m not convinced by Havertz. I don’t think he will have a good season.”
There has been plenty of discourse about Havertz’s penalty over the last week, with ESPN pundit Steve Nicol claiming Arsenal were unprofessional to hand the German the kick.
“If you’re the coach of a team and you allow things like that to happen, then it spreads into other things,” Nicol said.
“You have to be precise, and orders are orders. You take the penalties, or you take the penalties, one of the two of you. Not: ‘Oh let’s be nice and fuzzy and lovely and give it to Havertz’.
“Do you think him scoring a goal there is going to make any difference to the way he plays in the middle of the park? No, it’s not. It’s unprofessional.”
Yet Havertz is arguably one of Arsenal’s very best penalty-takers.
The former Chelsea man has taken 12 penalties in his senior career (excluding shootouts), scoring 11. He’d also scored one in Arsenal’s Emirates Cup shootout during pre-season.
Of Arsenal’s players to take 10 senior penalties or more, Havertz is the only one with a conversion rate above 90%.
From the Arsenal squad, only Jorginho (41 converted from 48 attempts) has taken significantly more penalties than Havertz.
At the time, Jorginho wasn’t on the pitch, so Havertz was a perfectly sensible option to take the penalty.