Chelsea confirm Kai Havertz has tested positive for COVID-19

Kai Havertz was not seen in yesterday’s open training at Cobham, and he was not included in the matchday squad for tonight’s match against Stade Rennais in the Champions League group stages.

No one had any solid information as to what was going on, but the mystery has now been solved. Chelsea have confirmed that the 21-year-old has tested positive for COVID-19, and has thus gone into self-isolation as per standard protocol.

Since Havertz was able to play this weekend, the positive test was presumably from the UEFA-mandated testing that has to be done before each Champions League match. (Similar tests flagged eleven (11!) players for Ajax this week, for example.)

Havertz is the first Chelsea player since the summer to test positive, when several came back from holidays carrying or in close contact with the virus. Back in March, Callum Hudson-Odoi was one of the first confirmed cases in the Premier League. That caused a partial lockdown of our training facilities and the entire team to go into self-isolation, but protocols have evolved since then to become more targeted.

Havertz will thus miss the weekend’s match against Sheffield United as well, and also not join up with the Germany squad over the upcoming international break. He should be back afterwards, provided he completes his mandatory period of self-isolation without developing any symptoms and of course returning a couple negative tests.