Kepa Arrizabalaga

[Rapkun 668]

5 minutes ago, King Kante said:

Yeah, you are right. The amount of times I had to tell a certain breed of Kepa supporter that the save against Watford wasn't akin to Banks v Brazil was unbelievable. Honestly, this whole Kepa situation has made me realise how stubborn people can be. All the evidence there is on him clearly shows a poor GK, however because people previously said he was good/great they feel the need to defend the indefensible. 

I think the supporters(mainly the young ones) wanted Kepa to succeed to prove that we didn't need Courtois and that he wasn't very good(obviously not true) so they maintained the illusion that he was a good goalkeeper who was unlucky or playing with a bad defense around him refusing to see the truth.

The funny thing is that the expectations for our next goalkeeper are going to be huge in comparision. People will be downplaying his good saves and amplifying his mistakes.

[Vegetable 830]

34 minutes ago, Rapkun said:

I think the supporters(mainly the young ones) wanted Kepa to succeed to prove that we didn't need Courtois and that he wasn't very good(obviously not true) so they maintained the illusion that he was a good goalkeeper who was unlucky or playing with a bad defense around him refusing to see the truth.

The funny thing is that the expectations for our next goalkeeper are going to be huge in comparision. People will be downplaying his good saves and amplifying his mistakes.

Yeah, it pretty much came from the fact, that Courtois screwed us over a little bit as people were expecting him to show more loyalty and faith to the club, although it's partly board's fault as they could see it coming but apparently didn't believe he won't renew or didn't think they need a GK, lol, hence panic sell and panic buy. Not renewing, some bad words in press and the whole 'snake' thing started + he wasn't a cool guy really. In contrast, Kepa seems like a likeable, modest lad and was happy to sign 7 year contract, so he quickly got most of fans on his side. Well, I still wish him the very best, but clearly he can't handle what he has to handle right now.

[!Hazard! 3,394]

I've defended him for far too long. I'm now officially done with him, there's no going back now. We have to get a new GK.

Tbh, I spent most of summer 2018 saying we should sign Cillessen. He's hardly a world class keeper but he certainly isn't any worse than Kepa and would have cost only a fraction of Kepa's massive transfer fee. What a fuck up this turned out to be

[King Kante 1,474]

On 08/08/2018 at 10:29 PM, Blusan Alamb said:

Some of his mistakes.

I wish someone had spoken to this Sociedad fan first. 

[Tomo 21,733]

14 minutes ago, King Kante said:

I wish someone had spoken to this Sociedad fan first. 

In fairness we haven't actually seen those type of outrageous errors here, it's more lacking the fundamentals.

if he done a few of them every season but also did the basics and made some great saves i'd be willing to give him another shot.

[NikkiCFC 7,942]

On 1/24/2019 at 11:17 PM, Jason said:

What a Kepa! 

 

On 1/24/2019 at 11:46 PM, Bosnian Blue said:

I am so delighted we got rid of the fucking cancer that was Courtois and brought this kid in. Seems such a nice and polite fella

We love you Kepa

 

On 1/24/2019 at 11:59 PM, Alabama said:

My Kepa...

 

On 1/25/2019 at 0:01 AM, MrExcalibur100 said:

He's freaking brilliant. Makes me not even remember a great keeper like Courtois left us. He's that good. His distribution is a million times better than Courtois' mediocre distribution plus he's an excellent shot stopper. The best distribution of any Chelsea keeper probably ever. His command of the box has really impressed/surprised me.  Love everything about Kepa. He's been easily one of our best players this season.

 

On 1/25/2019 at 7:22 AM, Tomo said:

The fact he's come here on a record breaking fee for a keeper and the media, pundits and opposition fans are leaving him alone is the biggest compliment he can get.

The narratives wrote themselves for the anti Chelsea brigade, if he was even as much as needing adaption time they would have banged on about how he's a downgrade on Courtois (like they done with Baka/Matic even when the former was playing allright) while constantly citing Alisson as how to spend big money on a keeper properly.

 

On 1/25/2019 at 8:37 AM, manpe said:

Courtois did us a favour by acting a cunt or we wouldn't have got Kepa. I didn't even realize what we were missing until I saw Kepa's distribution, so accurate and effortless... Courtois would whip half of those balls out of bounds. Not only that but he's a great shot stopper too. 7 year contract how lucky are we  

 

On 1/25/2019 at 11:53 AM, Special Juan said:

I love this bloke.

 

On 1/25/2019 at 0:20 PM, BlueLyon said:

He just has this Cech vibe about him. Seems determined to succeed here and genuinely likes to be here. No other preferences like that cunt Tibo.

 

We always like to make things black or white 

It was general opinion that Kepa was great in his first season here.

It is true that he is horrible this season and not 15% of what he was last season.

We have example of DDG. How many years he has been labeled as best GK in the world?

Now people make fun of him. Probably two, three years now.  Both from hero to zero.

I think it is mental thing with Kepa. Saying this, he has been shit lately and needs to be replaced urgently.

But he is not the worst GK like some making him... He can easily come back next season (In Spain?) and become world class and Spain number one.

I think we need new GK next season but not because I think Kepa is the worst GK but because if I have to bet I think it is more likely next season he will be Kepa from this season and not from the last one.

[Nero 1,838]

1 hour ago, King Kante said:

I wish someone had spoken to this Sociedad fan first. 

Yeah, he was right

 

[communicate 2,703]

21 hours ago, Jason said:

This. I have tried to be patient with Kepa this season, even after all the mistakes he has made but it has gotten to the point where I don't think he will make a save anymore. He's just there to make up the numbers but otherwise, he's just a ghost in goal. Better off not even playing a goalie if Kepa is gonna play. 

He kinda f up your brain what shot is saveable

[Nero 1,838]

 

[blu35_army 551]

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...

[BXL70 396]

On 23/07/2020 at 1:27 AM, Vesper said:

 

 

 

 

Shocking.

 

[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 27,421]

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

[Nero 1,838]

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 6,370]

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 27,421]

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