Ex-Chelsea star to mark Arsenal debut this week after completing £65m switch

Former Chelsea forward Kai Havertz will mark his Arsenal debut coincidentally in his home country Germany after jetting out with the rest of the Arsenal squad over the weekend.

The Gunners travelled to Germany on Sunday for pre-season camping and face Nurnberg on Thursday. The forward is part of a 30-man squad that will be training at the Herzogenaurach as Mikel Arteta looks to fine-tune his squad that came mighty close to winning the Premier League last season.

Unsurprisingly Arsenal went back to Germany for their pre-season and having seen the benefits last season, they have decided to return for the second year running hoping to continue from where they left off the previous campaign.

German Havertz alongside Mason Mount is perhaps the high-profile departure from Chelsea so far with the Blues undergoing a massive clearout that has seen almost 10 players say goodbye.

The club have generated almost £200million in sales and could end up recouping almost half of the £600million they spent in the last two transfer windows if they get significant fees for the trio of want-away forwards Romelu Lukaku, Christian Pulisic and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

Havertz was the hero in Porto when Chelsea won the Champions League against Manchester City in 2021 but struggled for consistency which eventually meant Chelsea were comfortable to let him leave especially with Christopher Nkunku arriving from RB Leipzig.

Nicolas Jackson has also arrived from Villarreal but Mauricio Pocehhtino’s track record of getting the best out of youngsters means he might be able to get Armando Broja back to his best after the knee injury that kept him out for a large part of last season.

Chelsea begin the second week of their pre-season with a host of internationals returning including Lukaku and Enzo Fernandez.