Kepa Arrizabalaga

[turgi 71]

19 hours ago, Fernando said:

I thought so as well. 

But I think he still can have a resale value and all that stuff. 

Torres to me continues to be the biggest flop because of the money at that time. For inflation it would be higher and what we had to go through to try to get the best out of him.......

No one will ever come close to Torres! 

I can't see how Chelsea get any money for him.

And his salary makes it even harder.

[Special Juan 27,101]

It's either take a massive hit or loan him.

[Nero 1,794]

2 hours ago, blu35_army said:

just don't buy high price GK again,,forget Oblak. buy Rajkovic, Pope or even Areola and we can spent those money to worldclass Center back / full back...

No english goalkeepers pls.

They are all overrated. Remember when Pickford was hyped to the high heavens? Cos he's english

[Jype 6,398]

11 minutes ago, Patrick Bamford said:

No english goalkeepers pls.

They are all overrated. Remember when Pickford was hyped to the high heavens? Cos he's english

Pickford was never that good in the PL to begin with, people just got carried away when he had a decent World Cup in 2018.

Nick Pope however has played pretty well for Burnley, not the best of goalkeepers distribution-wise but he's a good shot stopper. Dean Henderson looks quite promising too but it's still early days for him and I don't think getting him from Manchester United is a realistic possibility anyway, at least not for a reasonable amount of money.

I could live with taking a punt on someone like Pope. He's not a world class keeper by any means but he would be an improvement over Kepa whose confidence is totally gone. If he was valued reasonably I'd say the club could do a lot worse than Pope.

[Superblue 6,331]

My biggest problem with Pope is how much Burnley will ask for him because I have a feeling it will be a lot. They've pretty much fully committed to him in recent seasons getting rid of Heaton and Hart, so I can't see them letting him go without a big bid.

If we can't shift Kepa then a signing like an Oblak goes from maybe 10-20% chance down to zero. 

Either we manage to get a good keeper under £20m to compete with or replace Kepa, who can then go out on loan so we're getting something for him.

Or we try to do a stopgap next season whilst loaning Kepa out in the hope that he finds some form and development somewhere else to either come back eventually or become more attractive to sell. For example would someone like Areola be a possibility on loan for a season, allowing us to loan out Kepa?

There is no way he's being sold on the cheap because it would cause a massive hit on the year's books writing off a larger part of his transfer fee. At worst, the club will loan him out for a season or two, until his value in our own books is much lower before selling him. But as people have mentioned we won't get a team prepared to loan him paying his £10m amortisation costs for a year plus his wages. A hit will have to be taken somewhere.

[Jype 6,398]

3 minutes ago, Superblue_1986 said:

There is no way he's being sold on the cheap because it would cause a massive hit on the year's books writing off a larger part of his transfer fee. At worst, the club will loan him out for a season or two, until his value in our own books is much lower before selling him. But as people have mentioned we won't get a team prepared to loan him paying his £10m amortisation costs for a year plus his wages. A hit will have to be taken somewhere.

Yeah, that's true. Right now he has £50M amortisation left and five years on his contract. So even if the club managed to loan him out for the next two seasons he'd still be under contract for a few more seasons so if he regains at least some kind of form it'd then be easier to sell him for a fee.

Getting someone to pay even £5M/season loan fee and half his wages would still count as a huge success for the club at this point. That would mean the club could buy a keeper for £25M and pay them £80K/wk on a five year deal and the total net costs on the club's books would remain the same as currently with Kepa. Plenty of keepers who could be available at those figures, for example Onana.

Surely there's some club in Spain willing to take a chance on Kepa? From what I've heard he's still quite highly rated back in his homeland despite his struggles. Best case scenario he gets back to his Athletic Bilbao form and they have a good keeper for a somewhat reasonable amount of money on loan. And if not, they can always send him back to us after the initial loan so I'd see it as a relatively low risk gamble for them. Sevilla for example are playing CL football next seasons so they should easily have the money too. Their current keeper Vaclik looks decent though, but his contract is running out next year so is he their long-term choice (31yo)?

[Special Juan 27,101]

Chelsea will priortise a goalkeeper once the deal for Kai Havertz is done. Lampard wants a proven and experienced goalkeeper.

[BXL70 395]

In the meantime, please play Willy against Wolves. It can't be any worst.

[BXL70 395]

4 hours ago, blu35_army said:

just don't buy high price GK again,,forget Oblak. buy Rajkovic, Pope or even Areola and we can spent those money to worldclass Center back / full back...

Why not Areola? He is available for 20 million Euros, around 16 £ million. Proved and experienced;

[Jype 6,398]

3 minutes ago, BXL70 said:

Why not Areola? He is available for 20 million Euros, around 16 £ million. Proved and experienced;

I had Areola on my 'shortlist' as a possible new goalkeeper two years ago before Kepa was bought. Looked a decent option at the time, but not sure now after he's been sitting out a whole season as a backup. Also a Mino Raiola client.

[NikkiCFC 7,580]

I like Areola. He should be 20m max. Not big wages. Loan deal also possibility.

New house in London.

 

I remember this top performance when he had 7 saves against Germany.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

11 hours ago, blu35_army said:

just don't buy high price GK again,,forget Oblak. buy Rajkovic, Pope or even Areola and we can spent those money to worldclass Center back / full back...

The difference between Oblak and Kepa is that Oblak is actualy world class and Kepa was just a potentialy good. Much like Joao Felix.

It just baffled me why would anyone pay more for a potentialy good player when you can get already world class one.

I thought scouts knew something about Kepa and thats why we spent 70m on 7? year deal.

Turns out it was just a gamble. Kepa is complete shite since his GF dumped him unfortunely.

[milka 3,308]

Chelsea will prioritise the signing of a new goalkeeper once a deal is finalised for Kai Havertz, with Frank Lampard losing patience with Kepa Arrizabalaga. He wants a 'proven and experienced' goalkeeper.

- @MarkOgden_

 

 

 

[King Kante 1,296]

39 minutes ago, BlueLyon said:

The difference between Oblak and Kepa is that Oblak is actualy world class and Kepa was just a potentialy good. Much like Joao Felix.

It just baffled me why would anyone pay more for a potentialy good player when you can get already world class one.

I thought scouts knew something about Kepa and thats why we spent 70m on 7? year deal.

Turns out it was just a gamble. Kepa is complete shite since his GF dumped him unfortunely.

Actually Kepa hasn't ever been that good. Go watch some of his Athletic games and look at the stats, he wasn't pulling up trees there either. 

What happened, in my opinion, is that they did three things with him. These were; 

1) Made the mistake and assume that he would improve his game rather than stagnate. 

2) Looked at his La Liga cross collection stats and thought it would translate to the PL - surprisingly his cross collection rate was fairly decent at Athletic. 

3) Looked at his top saves in isolation a got overly excited by how agile he looked. 

To be honest, the Kepa deal raises a lot of questions. I say this as he had only played 56 career games, he is clearly tiny for a PL GK, his stats where mediocre when we brought him and his buy out and wages where insane. 

For me Kepa was most likely brought because someone on the board seriously fu*ked up with Tibo, in that they thought they could get him to stay and hadn't seriously pressed the scouts to look for a GK. 

I said it a little while ago but Kepa is going down as the biggest waste of money transfer ever for us. He is a complete and utter dud. 

[BlueLyon 9,359]

41 minutes ago, King Kante said:

Actually Kepa hasn't ever been that good. Go watch some of his Athletic games and look at the stats, he wasn't pulling up trees there either. 

What happened, in my opinion, is that they did three things with him. These were; 

1) Made the mistake and assume that he would improve his game rather than stagnate. 

2) Looked at his La Liga cross collection stats and thought it would translate to the PL - surprisingly his cross collection rate was fairly decent at Athletic. 

3) Looked at his top saves in isolation a got overly excited by how agile he looked. 

To be honest, the Kepa deal raises a lot of questions. I say this as he had only played 56 career games, he is clearly tiny for a PL GK, his stats where mediocre when we brought him and his buy out and wages where insane. 

For me Kepa was most likely brought because someone on the board seriously fu*ked up with Tibo, in that they thought they could get him to stay and hadn't seriously pressed the scouts to look for a GK. 

I said it a little while ago but Kepa is going down as the biggest waste of money transfer ever for us. He is a complete and utter dud. 

To me spending 70m which is club record and world record for GK doesnt say it was a panic/quick buy but rather a strong belief he is the one and will develop well.

But yes as much this board did some good deals, buying Drinkwater for 40m or Kepa for 70m was a big idiotism. 

I was surprised we paid that much for him, but his performances were good in the first season and it seemed good purchase. However for that price there is no excuse and he has to deliver. He didnt do that in second season, hence it was a big mistake to buy him.

[King Kante 1,296]

4 minutes ago, BlueLyon said:

To me spending 70m which is club record and world record for GK doesnt say it was a panic/quick buy but rather a strong belief he is the one and will develop well.

But yes as much this board did some good deals, buying Drinkwater for 40m or Kepa for 70m was a big idiotism. 

I was surprised we paid that much for him, but his performances were good in the first season and it seemed good purchase. However for that price there is no excuse and he has to deliver. He didnt do that in second season, hence it was a big mistake to buy him.

Kepa is on record as saying that he only got contacted by Chelsea about two weeks prior to the transfer. That tells me he wasn't fully planned for. When big transfers happen they are usually ongoing for months so the player can prepare themselves to move country which involves new house/new schools for children/new cars etc. 

The rumour was Oblak turned us down due to us only going to him so late and he didn't want to go through the upheaval (although this is only a rumour.) 

Further, Kepa in January 18 had an £18m buyout, so he was clearly not a target for us or we thought of him that highly at that point as otherwise we should've done one of our buy to loan specials. Further, at that point he was apparently on under €10k a week. 

Everything about the Kepa transfer points to a panic buy and a particularly insane one at that. 

[OneMoSalah 8,614]

7 hours ago, NikkiCFC said:

I like Areola. He should be 20m max. Not big wages. Loan deal also possibility.

New house in London.

 

I remember this top performance when he had 7 saves against Germany.

Not big wages? His agent is notorious for getting his clients big money and he was at PSG, coming through the ranks and now on loan to Real Madrid. I refuse to believe hes would be on less than 100k a week at PSG considering he has been there since he was a youth player and they will have renewed him a few times....suppose not the biggest wage but again, its hardly as if its minimal.

Edit: ok few websites reckon 80-90k currently but again, when these players move they very rarely take a wage drop, they usually want more money. I would expect the same.

Saying that, he really isnt that great a GK either, not the worst, not the best. There is a reason as to why he is still behind Mandanda in the NT back up GK role. I suppose if there weren’t any better options and the fee wasn’t extravagant, yeah sure take him but he wouldnt even make the top 10 candidates for me. Reason why we bought Kepa before him too.

also @King Kante just because the players only been contacted 2 weeks or a month or whatever before a transfer it doesn’t mean he is not vetted by the club for some time. Or what would be the point in having a scouting system?

Plus for 71m your going to want to be doubly and triply sure that the guy will be worth the outlay so its not as if they panicked and picked his name out a hat...

Chelsea had been watching Pulisic long before we made our interest clear, same with Kevin de Bruyne, the Dutch scouting fella was quoted saying he had been following him since he was 15 and also Andre Schurrle. So I would severely doubt that any shortcuts were taken with Kepa who the club knew was more than likely going to cost his buyout clause. It would be idiotic if they hadnt been aware of him or watched him live or on video as well as looking through all the various modern day data they can use to help analyse players as well as take into account their characters, their behaviours etc. I mean, cmon, this is professional football, not soccer aid. Plus the club had known for months Tibo wanted to leave because they tried to renew his contract a few times and then he put it off to the summer so I would imagine the club will have had contingencies for that, which makes that statement even more baffling. 

plus when his buyout was lower or whatever, he was essentially 90% ready to go to Madrid which would of pointed towards us having a better chance of keeping Tibo. But their president pulled the plug despite Zidane wanting Kepa because he wanted Courtois. Then Bilbao offered him a new deal with a higher buyout because his contract was set to expire IIRC.

[Jype 6,398]

Looking at the club's transfer records the success rate has mostly been horrendous.

1. Kepa £72M →huge flop

2. Morata £59M → huge flop

3. Pulisic £58M → jury still out, but looks great

4. Jorginho £51M → not bad, not good

5. Torres £50M → huge flop

6. Werner £48M → hasn't played yet

7. Kovacic £41M → looking good

8. Shevchenko £40M → flop

9. Ziyech £36M → hasn't played yet

10. Bakayoko £36M → huge flop

11. Batshuayi £35M → flop

 

So out of 11 highest transfers for the club I would say 6 have been big flops, one has been decent, two have been good and two haven't yet played and could still go either way (I'm confident Werner and Ziyech will come good tho).

After the first 11 the list looks a lot better with players like Drogba, Costa, Essien, Kante, Willian, Hazard and Luiz in places 12-20.