All your latest Chelsea headlines on football.london with updates on Kai Havertz, Timo Werner and Stephen Pagliuca
Here are your latest football.london Chelsea headlines on on Monday, April 11.
Kai Havertz sent seven-word message
The German attacker has been sent a seven-word message after what he did against Southampton and just in time for the Real Madrid return. Chelsea’s current first-choice striker added to his goal tally for the season with his two goals netted in the 6-0 win over the weekend.
It was a win that confirmed in many fans’ minds what they already knew – he is the best number 9 at the club despite that not being his natural position. So much so that even former Blues icon Paul Canoville hopes the German can repeat a moment shown in the Saints thrashing when the current European and World Champions make the trip to the Spanish capital on Tuesday.
In this one moment, Havertz produced two moments of magic. One on midfielder James Ward-Prowse then the same skill repeated immediately after on Tino Livramento. To which @KingCanners said: “Dear Kai. Stop it, that’s not fair.”
Majority owner of Atalanta and one of the four shortlisted bidders to takeover Chelsea, Stephen Pagliuca, has copied Todd Boehly by reportedly attending a Blues game in the flesh to make his intentions known. Todd Boehly and the Ricketts Family seem to be the two frontrunners in this everchanging race with both consortiums having been shown Cobham already.
All interested parties have until April 18 to improve their offers as the Raine Group in conjunction with senior Chelsea figures prepare for the next phase of the new ownership search. Whoever is to win the race has a number of issues to sort out. But it seems as though Pagliuca has now followed Boehly’s suit in watching Thomas Tuchel’s Blues in real life and instead of the Real Madrid midweek fixture in which the part-time LA Dodgers owner attended, he waited a few days to travel to the South Coast.
This is according to Goal’s Nizaar Kinsella who tweeted: “New: Stephen Pagliuca is in the UK and is said to have attended Chelsea’s 6-0 win over Southampton. He has been meeting with various stakeholders around Chelsea, including meeting Paul Canoville about diversity, inclusion & charity work. Very much a 4 horse race for Chelsea FC’s ownership.”
Ian Wright makes ‘unlucky’ Timo Werner claim
Arsenal legend Ian Wright has labelled Timo Werner an ‘unlucky’ striker after the German arguably put in his best performance of the season on the South Coast as Chelsea hit six past Southampton. Werner, 26, netted his third and fourth goals scored against Ralph Hasenhuttl’s out of sought Saints, who took inspiration from Chelsea’s defending shown midweek against Real Madrid in the Champions League. It allowed the Blues’ attacking line to have a field day and the £50million man finally came clutch after a frustrating season to date had led to questions over his long-term future come the summer with interest swirling from around the European Leagues in recent times.
His football.london player rating at St Mary’s read: “If only the German forward could play Southampton every week. Werner struck the woodwork three times at St Mary’s and also had a good chance denied by Forster, but he also managed to find the back of the net on two occasions. The first came after he was given the entire Southampton half to run into, and the second was a close-range finish. Werner has now scored more Premier League goals against Southampton (5) than every other top-flight side (4), but whether he starts on Tuesday night is debatable. 8.”
These were comments reciprocated by manager Thomas Tuchel who admitted that this contest was set for him to ‘deliver’ and give the fans a rare glimpse of what he was like in the Bundesliga with RB Leipzig. Despite these two goals scored this weekend, it is unlikely as it stands that the German is given a start at the Bernabeu on Tuesday due to his overall form throughout the season which has been labelled as ‘unlucky’ by Wright.
Summing up Werner’s performance on BBC’s Match of the Day, the former Premier League striker explained: “Yeah it’s good to see and Southampton play with a high line so it suited him well. He’s so unlucky as a striker. He’s one of the most unlucky strikers I’ve seen.”
