Rio Ferdinand says ‘elusive’ £150k-a-week Chelsea player would be hard to play against

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Rio Ferdinand has praised Chelsea’s Kai Havertz by suggesting he’s someone that would be very hard to play against.

Havertz, who earns £150,000-a-week, looked in fantastic shape during his midweek performance in Europe.

The 22-year-old attacker scored a header during Chelsea’s 2-0 win against Lille on Tuesday night, as they took control in the first leg of the Champions League last-16 tie.

Pundit and ex-Manchester United defender Ferdinand has highlighted how difficult Havertz makes it for opposition defences. For example, he loves to drop into pockets of space deeper or out wide to impact matches.

“He’s not a number nine in the old conventional way, but in today’s football, he passes as a number nine,” Ferdinand told BT Sport’s Champions League Tonight show (11:25pm, 23rd February).

“His best game in a Chelsea shirt, for me, yesterday [against Lille]. He played up front… He was elusive, he’s hard to mark. When I look at a number nine I look at what would that be like to mark. He doesn’t play up against anyone. Defenders rarely get him with his back to goal where they can go clamp him and smash him. He plays away from people, which makes him very difficult to play against.”

Incidentally, Glenn Hoddle said Havertz’s midweek performance against Lille was the best he’s seen from him at Stamford Bridge.

He really impressed playing as the central striker, so it’ll be intriguing to see if he vacates that role to make room for teammate Romelu Lukaku in this Sunday’s Carabao Cup final against Liverpool.

Race for the Chelsea golden boot

It’s an intriguing watch to see which Chelsea player ends up with the most goals this season. It’s worth pointing out there are several on this list that will feel they are a long way short of what they’re capable of, though.

Romelu Lukaku (10) leads the way ahead of penalty specialist Jorginho (nine) right now. The duo of Havertz and Mason Mount have seven, while Hakim Ziyech and Timo Werner have six each.

Havertz is someone that should be aiming to put together a great goalscoring run from now until the summer to increase his influence. However, he’s yet to find any prolonged consistency at the Bridge.

You’d suspect Lukaku to wrap up top spot in Chelsea’s scoring charts, but fans are worried about his form right now.

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