Arsenal have signed Kai Havertz from Chelsea as Mikel Arteta's Gunners revolution moved up another notch.
The German becomes the first signing of the summer for the Gunners, who are looking to build on their impressive campaign last time out. Havertz has spent the last three years at the Blues, scoring the winner in their Champions League final victory two years ago.
Arsenal have now captured the versatile 24-year-old, who can fill in at a number of positions across the forward line, for an initial £65m with a further £15m coming in add-ons. Last season Havertz scored nine times in all competitions and leave Chelsea having notched on 32 occasions across 139 appearances.
Havertz said: “It's super exciting for me to be joining this amazing club and to be part of the Arsenal family. This club has such a big history, and I hope we can achieve lots of things. The mentality in the Arsenal squad is very high and you can feel that. That was one of the reasons why it has been so hard to play against Arsenal recently.
“The aim is to win trophies and I’m going to give everything to do that for the supporters and everyone at the club. I'm now looking forward to meeting all the players and the staff when we come back for pre-season.”
Arteta added: “Kai is a player of top quality. He has great versatility and is an intelligent player. He will bring a huge amount of extra strength to our midfield and variety to our play. We welcome Kai and his family to Arsenal Football Club and we are all excited to start working with him when we start pre-season training soon.”
Havertz was highly thought of as a youngster in his homeland having come through the system at Bayer Leverkusen. The Blues won the race for his signature after negotiating a £71m package - which they have largely recouped by moving him across London.
Speaking about the capture, Arsenal's sporting director Edu added: “We’re excited to bring Kai to the club and great work by everyone to get this deal complete. Kai is an exciting addition to our squad, who will bring great attacking quality and versatility.
“As an experienced 24-year-old, his signing represents another important step in strengthening our young core of talented players we have at Arsenal. We look forward to working with Kai.”
