Kepa Arrizabalaga is still not worth the price Chelsea paid

While he has been Chelsea’s starter for 2 straight seasons, Kepa Arrizabalaga still fails to prove he was worth the £72m the Blues shelved out for him.

When ranking the Premier League’s best goalkeepers, many tend to put Kepa Arrizabalaga among the top 5. Normally ahead of North London goalkeepers Bernd Leno and Hugo Lloris, and behind Brazilian duo Alisson and Ederson, as well as Spanish counterpart David de Gea. While Kepa is, of course, a talented modern goalkeeper, he would likely be placed further down the list if he didn’t cost a whopping £72m back in the summer of 2018.

It’s something we see often in the modern era of ridiculously inflated transfer fees. Club’s pay too much, and subsequently, half of the fans expect too much due to the price tag, while the other half overrates the player beyond belief due to the very same number. It’s almost like a see-saw between football fans, and in the case of Kepa Arrizabalaga, things are the exact same.

If you take a look at the stats, they certainly don’t stand out for Kepa. If you compare him with the player that tends to be placed alongside him the most, Arsenal’s Bernd Leno, the Gunner comes out on top by a wide margin in some crucial departments.

While Arsenal tend to concede far more shots than Chelsea, the two keepers have conceded the same number of goals this season, despite Leno facing 31 more shots on target. This, in turn, means that Leno’s save success rate stands at an impressive 73.61%, while Kepa’s lingers at mediocrity – 53.66%.

The rest of the regular starting goalkeepers in the Premier League top 6 have save % stats as follows: Alisson – 73.68%, Ederson – 73.17%, De Gea – 71.7%, and Lloris – 78.95%. As you can see, Kepa’s save success rate is significantly lower than the levels of his counterparts.

Of course, veering away from statistics and leaning towards what we’ve seen from him with our own eyes, it seems fairly obvious that Kepa has some significant flaws to his game. First of all, he’s only 6’1, which is actually short for a goalkeeper (Most professional teams look for goalkeepers that are between 6’2 and 6’5). The repercussions of a goalkeeper being shorter than 6’2 aren’t traceable by statistics, but they make a significant difference when it comes to claiming crosses and covering the net.

Kepa also seems to have weak wrists, and he consistently allows shots to sneak by him, even when getting a hand to them. While he is still young in goalkeeping terms at 25, these issues don’t seem to be going away, and Chelsea will surely be questioning their decision to spend so much money on him. If they are to get further in the Champions League and maintain pressure in the top 4 of the Premier League, Kepa has to start reaching his potential.