Kepa Arrizabalaga

[BXL70 396]

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

[BXL70 396]

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 7,942]

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 3,344]

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 1,474]

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 1,474]

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 8,776]

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.  

[Jase 43,479]

4 minutes ago, Jype said:

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

[King Kante 1,474]

20 minutes ago, OneMoSalah said:

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 agree, but the problem is Mo, it doesn't appear any of what you outline is the case. I say this because: 

1) His stats where poor/not great at Athletic.

2) He has a £18m buy out in the Jan before we brought him and at that time he was on sub-€10k. If we were tracking/watching with intent why not buy then? We do loan to buys all the time. This also goes double when your current No.1 has been stalling on an extension for 18+ months by that point. 

3) He had only played 56 professional games when we had brought him so any analysis was based on a small data set. 

[OneMoSalah 8,776]

22 minutes ago, King Kante said:

I agree, but the problem is Mo, it doesn't appear any of what you outline is the case. I say this because: 

1) His stats where poor/not great at Athletic.

2) He has a £18m buy out in the Jan before we brought him and at that time he was on sub-€10k. If we were tracking/watching with intent why not buy then? We do loan to buys all the time. This also goes double when your current No.1 has been stalling on an extension for 18+ months by that point. 

3) He had only played 56 professional games when we had brought him so any analysis was based on a small data set. 

He was poised to go to Madrid for 20 or 25m euros in January. I think the club likely wanted that to go through so Courtois would maybe stay. Then he renewed at Bilbao when they pulled out so higher release clause, wages etc as with most new deals. Plus you would think or hope we were likely always trying to persuade Tibo anyway but always probably had targets set on Oblak and Alisson first then the likes of inferior more attainable options such as Kepa and Areola if he did leave. Which is fair enough. Dont put all your eggs in one basket, smart move. 

Also what does it matter how many games he’s got? Plus thats only his first team games at Bilbao. Not including his B team spells or the various loan moves before which the standard may not be the same but its experience and its definitely professional games. 

Even then if thats how you want to look at it, okay, Alisson had only played 49 games in European football before Liverpool signed him. Oblak had played 34 games before Benfica bought him. De Gea played 57 games with Atletico before Man United bought him. Courtois had 41 games at Genk before we bought him.

The games played means very little in regard to all of these guys because people acknowledged their talent regardless. So any data gathered maybe it would be a small data set but again I doubt they’d discount the loan moves or B team games or u21s, u19s games or games in the Brazilian league for Alisson too because these things all can give off more data to be used and can help build a more accurate profile of a player. 

[King Kante 1,474]

15 minutes ago, OneMoSalah said:

He was poised to go to Madrid for 20 or 25m euros in January. I think the club likely wanted that to go through so Courtois would maybe stay. Then he renewed at Bilbao when they pulled out so higher release clause, wages etc as with most new deals. Plus you would think or hope we were likely always trying to persuade Tibo anyway but always probably had targets set on Oblak and Alisson first then the likes of inferior more attainable options such as Kepa and Areola if he did leave. Which is fair enough. Dont put all your eggs in one basket, smart move. 

Also what does it matter how many games he’s got? Plus thats only his first team games at Bilbao. Not including his B team spells or the various loan moves before which the standard may not be the same but its experience and its definitely professional games. 

Even then if thats how you want to look at it, okay, Alisson had only played 49 games in European football before Liverpool signed him. Oblak had played 34 games before Benfica bought him. De Gea played 57 games with Atletico before Man United bought him. Courtois had 41 games at Genk before we bought him.

The games played means very little in regard to all of these guys because people acknowledged their talent regardless. So any data gathered maybe it would be a small data set but again I doubt they’d discount the loan moves or B team games or u21s, u19s games or games in the Brazilian league for Alisson too because these things all can give off more data to be used and can help build a more accurate profile of a player. 

Again don't disagree but there is still the problem that his stats where not good. The other GK's had great stats. De Gea is currently also bad but that looks more like a player with the yips than a player that is simply poor. If it wasn't for him the five years after Fergie left, gods knows how bad it could've got for Utd. 

As for the Madrid move, if that falls through then surely you just jump in if you rate him so high, especially if six months down the line you spunk £72m on him and your club runs a buy to loan portfolio.

Further, Tibo, Oblak, Alisson (from Brazil to Roma) all went for reasonable/low fees and wages. None went for world records and made one of the top five paid GK's in the world. 

[OneMoSalah 8,776]

6 hours ago, King Kante said:

Again don't disagree but there is still the problem that his stats where not good. The other GK's had great stats. De Gea is currently also bad but that looks more like a player with the yips than a player that is simply poor. If it wasn't for him the five years after Fergie left, gods knows how bad it could've got for Utd. 

As for the Madrid move, if that falls through then surely you just jump in if you rate him so high, especially if six months down the line you spunk £72m on him and your club runs a buy to loan portfolio.

Further, Tibo, Oblak, Alisson (from Brazil to Roma) all went for reasonable/low fees and wages. None went for world records and made one of the top five paid GK's in the world. 

Forget the stats, they can be extremely misleading in many aspects. Like Southamptons the amount of goals conceded at Southampton when van Dijk was there prior to leaving in January or the amount of assists Reece has this season when he should have so many more due to poor finishing or the amount of assists Jorginho doesn't have or whatever. Be exactly the same with GKs and even then he didnt have bad stats prior to moving, for a team like Bilbao which arent exactly high flying or hugely successful they were probably as good as theyd get all things considering.

There is a clear reason why he was highly regarded throughout Europe.... or you going to tell me that these clubs following him were all wrong? I mean I had seen him play in a few La Liga games and he was decent enough, wouldnt have said he would ever be world class but solid enough to have a good career at a top level club. Plenty to work on to hit another few levels like all GKs around that age 22/23, still a few wee errors here and there but doubt many would of seen him coming here doing well last season and in his second season play so poorly at times, even more so after the year he just had previously where he has gained recognition in Spain and ousted David de Gea to the Spain NT #1 spot.

Also de Gea the yips? Hes been making huge mistakes constantly in the last 24 months mate. Huge mistakes. But he was world class beforehand so its different to Kepa? So whats not to say Kepa had a really good first season last year (which he did) building on a promising campaign in Spain the year beforehand and now has had the yips in phases this season? Their situations are basically the same except one guy played in Spain for the bulk of the last 5 years and one guy in Manchester. Maybe to different levels but I don’t see how its hugely different because even then, Kepa has probably made less mistakes in the last 2 seasons than De Gea has. I wont deny there have been maybe 10 games this season where be has been poor for some of the goals and he was rightfully dropped earlier in the season looking back on it and even agree to an extent that replacing him could be a good idea if he doesn't recover but again, if he remains and gets back to last seasons level, I wont complain as it will save us signing another player and allow us to focus on the defence which needs a more vocal CB and a LB.

What part of he renewed after the move fell through aren’t you getting? Like it was just over a week, I am sure Real pulled the plug just after the second week of January and he renewed on the 20/21/22nd of January. Why would we trigger a 20m release clause for a GK when we had every intention of trying to keep Tibo? Or if he wasn’t the number one or two choice originally if he did go - Alisson and Oblak were. Do you think a club would just sign a 20m or 71m GK on the off chance Courtois would be sold and they didn’t feel they could get one of those other two who are undoubtedly world class? Again the clubs stance was hard regarding Tibo and if he had returned to train, he wouldnt of had been able to strongarm a sale as much so I dont get this whole panic side of it, they obviously did whatever they do and had watched him before before green lighting the buy, which again he signed before Madrid even presented Courtois to their fans so he was brought in prior to letting Tibo go so this panic buy shit is beginning to sound even dafter to me. I mean even stupider for me, if you want to bad mouth the club for this why not mention why didn’t we pursue Alisson or Oblak sooner in the January? Oh wait clubs don’t necessarily sell their better players mid season. Unless in exceptional circumstances such as release clauses being met or loaned back (ie. Pulisic). It also clearly indicates that we were keen on trying to keep Courtois and why not, he is a WC Gk. it would be daft to consider that we couldnt sway him otherwise, like we did with Eden that same summer.

Yes none of them went for record fees but if you look at Bilbao’s recruitment and their stance on selling players you’ll see why they only ever sell players for their release clauses. Javi Martinez to Bayern - release clause. Clubs wanted Muniain in the past but wouldn’t pay the release clause. Same with Inaki Williams the last few seasons, been interest but they want the release clause. It wouldn’t of mattered if it was 15m, 20m, 55m or 71m, we would of had to pay it.

I get the fee is a bit big for a GK of his quality but you act as if we had a choice, or as if Sarri also didnt give his blessing after Pepe Reina, his GK at Napoli, said to him he would be a good signing after having worked with him with the Spain set up also. The club knew exactly what they were buying, the potential number 1 GK for the next 7 years at least, so that would indicate to me they knew maybe their be a little hiccup here and there (but not to this extent) but theyd expect him to grow in the role as we all did after last season. Just hasnt happened and I would think the club will probably push for Oblak but if we dont get him, which in my eyes is more than likely, I think he will still be here either in the 11 or on the bench. 

[Tomo 21,733]

Yeah DDG past is irrelevant when discussing his present. He's everybit as finished at the top level as Torres post 2010 was.

The longer United persist with him the better.

[communicate 2,703]

3 hours ago, Tomo said:

Yeah DDG past is irrelevant when discussing his present. He's everybit as finished at the top level as Torres post 2010 was.

The longer United persist with him the better.

I don't think they want to persist with him but they are stuck with ddg. His salary make him impossible to move