He has often played on the left of Arteta’s midfield trio with Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard, but Fabio Vieira has also impressed in that role while Thomas Partey has since stepped up his return to fitness and could play alongside Rice and Odegaard, especially in tougher games.
Havertz does retain the confidence of his boss Arteta, however, as the Spanish head coach used an unorthodox analogy earlier in the season when explaining that his summer signing needs to be patient but persistent in order to encourage the new Puma star to keep the faith.
“I said to him yesterday, things are a little bit hard at the beginning,” Arteta explained in August. “When I met my wife at the beginning it was hard to conquer her, I had to try and message and go and go.
“At the end when she said, ‘yes, we want to be together’, it’s beautiful. I said in the first day you know it’s not that great. So it’s good, but I think the crowd was really good with him today.”
