Kai Havertz is the player Chelsea should be going after this summer and not Coutinho, according to Frank Leboeuf.
With the Bundesliga having taken centre stage as the only major European league to have started following the coronavirus crisis.
Kai Havertz has played a starring role for his Bayer Leverkusen side, scoring three times in two outings.
The young Germany player was on target twice on Saturday as Bayer won 3-1 away at Borussia Monchengladbach.
His performance only heightened rumours that he is on the radar of both EPL teams, Chelsea and Manchester United.
Meanwhile, Chelsea have also been linked with Coutinho, who is on loan at Munich, and Leboeuf believes there is no contest as to the player they should go after.
“I like his maturity on the field, he looks like someone who is 30 and knows exactly what he has to do and when he has to do it,” he told ESPN FC.
“The goal he scored was very clever, between the goalkeeper’s legs.
“He’s the master orchestrator of that team and I talked about him last week and I said that’s a player that I would hire for sure.
“When we were talking Chelsea about Coutinho, when you see that player Havertz, he should be in the Premier League very soon.
He should be because he’s a very, very talented player.”
Leboeuf has been a vocal critic of Coutinho in the past, despite the Brazil international scoring eight goals and six assists in 22 league outings so far this season.
“I would have lots of question marks seeing him coming to Chelsea, to bring what?”
He said in March.“I don’t know where his place would be.
If I was the chairman, if I was the coach, I would be very hesitant to pick him up.”
Coutinho is presently on the sidelines with an ankle injury and is expected to be back in June.
Havertz meanwhile says he is unwilling to risk ruining his time at Leverkusen by discussing speculation surrounding his future.
Asked about the talk surrounding his situation after the win over Monchengladbach on Saturday;
Havertz told Sky: “I do not like to say, of course, that there is a lot of speculation.
“I’m concentrating on this season and will see what happens afterwards.
I am very grateful to Leverkusen and I don’t want to mess it up in any way.”
He added: “We’re happy about the win. We put it on ourselves to win here and we did that.
We had to really give everything today and I think we deserved to win in the end.”
