Kai Havertz Needs Time & Patience to Become Chelsea's Next Superstar

Whenever a player signs for Chelsea, they are under pressure to perform but few have faced the kind of pressure felt by 21-year-old Kai Havertz.

He's the generational talent in which £72m of the Eden Hazard money was reinvested, and was instantly stamped as the man to lead Chelsea to glory for the next decade. So many big sides wanted him, but Chelsea got him and the excitement surrounding his signing was palpable.

He's three months into his Chelsea career, but it's safe to say that Havertz is yet to really live up to expectations.

While he hasn't exactly been poor, there's no denying that Havertz was nowhere near a £72m player in Saturday's 1-0 loss to Everton. He lost the ball ten times and generally looked to be on a different wavelength to the rest of his teammates, particularly right-sided partner Reece James.

It's been a bumpy start for the German, but that's fine. He was never going to come in and immediately fill the void left by Hazard, and expecting him to do so has only contributed to the pressure which he does not need.

There are a lot of factors which have contributed to Havertz's slow start, the obvious one being that he has moved to a new league in a new country. He's figuring out what life is like in the Premier League, and that's normal. Players of any age often need that settling-in period, and that's what Frank Lampard has been so keen to remind fans this season.

A similar comparison would be Joao Felix, who left his homeland to join Atletico Madrid for £113m in 2019.

The youngster had the pressure of that price tag and looked like a bit of a flop in his first season, but now that he's adjusted, he's the star player on the team that sit top of La Liga. He's figured out Spain just like Havertz is figuring out England.

On top of having those natural obstacles to overcome, the fact that Havertz moved clubs in 2020 has made things harder. The truncated nature of the season meant he barely had a pre-season and was not given the rest which most new signings get the luxury of, and then he contracted COVID-19.

As a young athlete, Havertz had a better chance than most of shaking off the virus, but he admitted to BBC's Football Focus that it hit him 'very hard' - a sentiment many players who have tested positive would agree with.

The lack of pre-season meant he wasn't even fully fit to begin with, and then contracting COVID-19 has erased any progress he made.

It's tricky to be patient when you've just seen your club spend such an enormous amount of money on a player. After all, if you spent £1,000 on a TV, you wouldn't sit by and give it a year before it finally picked up all the channels.

Chelsea fans are entitled to want more from Havertz, but ignoring the circumstances in which he finds himself is only going to lead to disappointment.

As a 21-year-old, Havertz is constantly learning, and he'll be taking a lot from his current struggles. He'll be speaking to Lampard, who knows what it takes to be a successful midfielder at the Bridge better than anybody on the planet, and he'll be working out what he needs to do to improve.

The Havertz we saw set the world on fire with Bayer Leverkusen is still in there somewhere, but it's up to the German to find a way to bring that side of himself out in England.

With time and patience from fans, Havertz will work that out. We know he's a quality player and we can confidently assume he'll be back at his best soon enough, but supporters need to lower their immediate expectations.

Lampard has been doing that all year. Maybe it's time to actually listen to him?

For more from ​Tom Gott, follow him on ​Twitter!