Havertz on his warm welcome and early impressions

Kai Havertz revealed that despite only being at the club for a matter of days, the welcome he has enjoyed from our squad already makes him feel part of the group.

After making his debut for the club as a second-half substitute against FC Nurnberg, the German international got to pull on our famous shirt for the first time as he aims to gel with his new teammates as quickly as possible, and afterwards took time to reflect on how his first few days have been.

Speaking post-match, he said: “I’m very happy - for me it’s a very big club and to play here is of course a dream and I’m happy to be part of this group. I’ve been here for four days and I feel very welcome and I’m happy to be with the boys.

“It’s a young group and when I watched them last year from the outside it was fun to watch them, and I felt the energy behind the club. It’s great to be here and hopefully we’re going to have a good time and achieve a lot of things.

“From the outside it always looked like a big family and I always felt the energy whenever I played against them. For me, it was always so tough to play against them because you felt the togetherness of the players, and now to be in there I felt very welcome from the first second. I’ve been here for a couple of days and I already feel part of the group.

“It’ll take some days and weeks to get used to the style of play, that is clear, but I’m going to give everything for the club to get the fitness back into my body and hopefully perform in the highest level in the league.”

Despite only linking up with our squad for a few days during our German training camp, Kai’s experiences playing against them over the past few seasons meant he knew what he was coming into, but has been even more impressed getting to see them up close.

That means he is hoping for big things during his time at Emirates Stadium as he hopes to bring success to north London after we came so close last season.

“This club has a big history and last year they were very close,” he added. “From the outside I always thought they were going to make it and obviously when you are part of the group, you want to achieve the biggest things and that’s one of the goals.

“When you see the players and the talent the team has - they showed last year they have big, big qualities. I just want to come in and be a part of this, play my best and help the team win as many games as possible.”