Tammy news: "It looked quite severe at half-time, a strong bang on the hip, but the word after the game is it might not be as severe as we thought. That's all I know." ---- Frank
Lille at home being the decider is best case scenario in terms of who I’d want to see us playing in these circumstances. High pressure match, arguably biggest of the season.
He saves the penalty. . . So here we are the pro’s and con’s of the Arrizabalaga debate. Someone should start the Kepa Arrizabalaga [25] 6ft 1” debate thread. There has been a lot of debate about the Kepa recently. He is the world’s most expensive goalkeeper. He is not the world’s best goalkeeper. He can be an excellent – However he has a certain inconsistency. His distribution from the back can be really problematic at times. But I feel we are still dealing with the ‘hot potato’ Sarri system at Chelsea at times. The lad is young, he has just turned 25. Which is young for a world class goalkeeper. I believe he is world class. Allisson is 27 and 6ft 3” De Gea is 29 and 6ft 4” Ederson is 26 and 6ft 2” Courtois is 27 and 6ft 6” Hugo Lloris is 32 and 6ft 2” Marc-André ter Stegen is 27 and 6ft 2” Keylor Navas 32 and 6ft 1” Maybe he is too young? Maybe he is Too short?
This statistic seems strange to me, maybe he is not as bad at distribution as I think . . .Kepa had the best passing accuracy of any goalkeeper in the Premier League last season at 85.4% but even that has dropped to 79% this season. Kepa is actually passing out from the back more this season under Frank than he did under Sarri. Frank is looking to bring in goalkeeping coach Shay Given. Henrique Hilario isn't of the requisite standard to be first-team goalkeeping coach. Kepa's save percentage was the worst of any top-six goalkeeper last season and that has dropped further. He has gone from saving 67.8 per cent of shots faced to only 52.5% in the Premier League. Although, our weakened defence this season could be a contributing factor.
Interesting stats there. The one about his passing accuracy is not surprising, as it is not the occasional give away that worries me it is the number of times he puts the defenders under pressure with passes that statistically go down as successful pssses. The shot stopping stat also does not surprise. He makes spectacular saves but he doesn't make so many bread and butter saves. But the most worrying thing is that he doesn't dominate the area he looks tentative. But you are correct he is not bad, he just is not good enough.
Yeah, hopefully a good goalkeeping coach on the backroom staff will help the lad considerably. Also, the return of Rudiger will help him as well. The defence in front of him has to improve. I quite like the lad. He has a little arrogance, just needs some confidence as you say dominate that area at the back. He is a little younger than the other keepers and they do have a more grown up defence in front of them. e.g., Allisson has Virgil. He has the weight hanging over him of the world's most expensive goalkeeper. Let's see how the lad develops.
It is the curse of the goalkeeper that every mistake is magnified and a decent to great save usually goes down as "doing his job", he is probably not in the top 7 for us in dangerous passes and passing to the wrong color in our own half and not the only one putting other players at risk by nearly always playing out of the back, we do a bit too much of that but that is usually on Lamp, though in long run perhaps we will become consistently better and comfy at it like City and scouse. I really don't recall many bad goals given by him this season, most like the first goal last match were due to glaring defensive mistakes like Kante that time letting a man go in the 6 yard box. Ederson and Allison probably best in League now, though Ederson starting to let goals in now that is defense has turned to shit thru injury, and just having Stones on the team. DeGea obliviously top class but summer before last and last season he let in a lot of bad goals and people were starting to question him a lot but seems back to form since, but still Kepa getting the nod over him for Spain more often. Lorris has had plenty of shit moments in the last year. I like Schmeical and Pope a lot but picture them having to play with their feet as much as is required for Chelsea now. I like Kepa and still plenty of upside potential for him, and hopefully our defenseas well, with Rudiger back soon, but we need to invest $$$ in a world class left back or $$ in a more competent and fast one. One thing I know for certain is I will take Kepa over Cuntois 117 times out of a hundred.
He is a decent keeper. I liked him a lot. Is he consistent? It is inconsistency that is Kepa's main issue really.
Yes, he's very consistent and can make the real tough saves. He's very strong and can one hand balls away. We were all surprised that he stayed this season but I guess a lot of the core players other than de Jong and de Ligt wanted to see what they could do with one more year. 4-5 starters are gone next summer.