1. Kepa’s story so far
Kepa Arrizabalaga was born in Ondarroa, a small fishing town in the Basque region of Spain on the 3rd October 1994.
He grew up with (and still has) a passion for birds, and he spent a lot of time during his childhood looking for goldfinches and teaching them to sing with his dad.
Now 26 years old, Kepa is entering the prime years of his career, so let’s take a look at what’s happened so far in the career of the undeniably talented goalkeeper.
Kepa started his footballing journey with the Basque club Athletic Bilbao, who are only allowed to have players from the Basque region of Spain.
As a kid he was always smaller than the other children his age, but the club could very clearly see the goalkeeping ability within him and decided to take him on.
‘They’re going to throw me out’ is what Kepa said in 2016 during his time in the Bilbao setup.
He need not have worried, as he went on to become noticed as a very talented young keeper while playing for the Basque club in La Liga and became the most expensive goalkeeper of all time upon signing for Chelsea in the summer of 2018.
During his time at Bilbao, Kepa was considered the most important player in the team despite being so young.
He had been earmarked right from the off as one of the most exciting young goalkeepers, and Chelsea clearly agreed and were willing to spend £71.6 million on him.
His time at Chelsea has been a mixed bag to be honest. His first season was very very good, making some incredible saves and boasting the highest pass accuracy for goalkeepers in the Premier League.
Oh, and he also won Chelsea the penalty shoot-out against Frankfurt in the Europa League semi-finals – sending them through to the final which they won 4-1 against Arsenal.
However, a mixture of personal problems and leaky defence in his second season led to Kepa having issues with his confidence, which saw him losing his place as number one goalkeeper in the team.
Edouard Mendy was brought in during the summer transfer window, and has since been the number one between the sticks for Chelsea.
At the moment this leaves Kepa in quite an odd situation, trying to fight back for his place in the team but not getting all that many chances to do so (only really playing in the FA Cup matches at the moment).
He has looked much better in the games he has played recently, especially under Tuchel’s management, and it looks like he’s putting the last year or so behind him.
Hopefully this is the start of him getting back to his very best – he even said in an interview that ‘he is not afraid anymore’.
It is yet to be known whether Chelsea is the place for him to make his comeback, but it does look as though a move back to his home country would be the best thing for him at this stage of his career.
2. What has gone wrong for Kepa in recent times?
In short – his confidence was completely shattered due to the constant scrutiny and harsh criticism from the English media.
As soon as Kepa fell off in his confidence and performances due to personal issues in his life outside of football, the media were very quick to ramp up the pressure the young goalkeeper was feeling tenfold.
The personal issues he was facing were what caused the downturn in form, but the media certainly did not help things at all.
It got to the point where Kepa was taken out of the team for a while and replaced by Willy Caballero, as it would’ve been harmful to keep playing him while going through so much and clearly not in the right headspace.
This time out of the spotlight around February 2020 really helped him recover, and when he made his return against Liverpool in the FA Cup he appeared a completely different player.
Just as it looked he had everything behind him and ready to play his best football, corona paid us all a visit.
Not a welcome one either.
Unfortunately for Kepa, I don’t think the pandemic could’ve arrived at a worse time if it tried.
Due to the restrictions put in place all over the world, Kepa was not able to see his family and was living alone in London during the lockdown period.
Despite all the money footballers make, there are just some things in life that you simply cannot buy.
Sadly, this lockdown period seemed to really affect Kepa, spending months in solitude, with his family in a totally different country.
After the restart of the Premier League, the errors just kept coming for Kepa and it meant that Edouard Mendy was brought into the club to provide another option.
Mendy has since been the number one goalkeeper for Chelsea, keeping 14 clean sheets in 24 PL appearances so far this season.
3. What’s the next step for him to get back to his best?
I think it’s fair to say that Kepa is in an unusual position right now.
He’s the most expensive goalkeeper of all time, yet he’s sitting on the bench for his club and wasn’t even selected for the Spanish national team recently.
It’s certainly not a situation he would’ve envisioned himself to be in after his mega-money move to the West London giants.
Minutes back on the pitch is a must at this point, and with the form that Edouard Mendy’s in, it’s looking like he might need a move away from London either on loan or permanently.
It’s easier said than done to secure a move away, especially as a goalkeeper because there aren’t many teams that are in need of one currently.
However, Kepa definitely has the quality to force himself into the first team of a top-half La Liga team, such as a team like Sevilla who have been linked with him over the past 9 months or so.
He has put in some good performances when he’s played under Thomas Tuchel, and it seems that he is very well suited to the Spanish style of football – so a move back to Spain would be the logical move.
Kepa has at times struggled with the more physical nature of the English league in comparison to the technical focus of La Liga.
One of his weaknesses has been dealing with crosses and commanding his penalty area, which is no surprise considering he is not that tall for a keeper.
However this season he has improved massively at this, and it has been clear to see an increase in confidence – as he has looked more secure at catching the crosses.
Last season he looked very uncomfortable when claiming the ball in his penalty area, which frequently came into question for pundits and journalists.
With that said, over recent games he’s played, the confidence and commanding nature has made a return, with Kepa being much more vocal in games, reminiscent of his days at Bilbao.
That’s enough of the negative. The truth is that Kepa is still a very good goalkeeper, and it’s only a matter of time before he gets back to his best.
His actual goalkeeping is very very good, in terms of keeping the ball out of the net.
One of his massive strengths is saving low shots – he’s able to get down low very quickly to make the saves comfortably that some taller keepers really struggle with.
His distribution of the ball is top notch as well, with his former coach at Bilbao saying ‘he circulates the ball very well’, and while playing under Sarri he had the best pass completion for goalkeepers in the Premier League.
There is a very good keeper in there, no doubt about that, and Kepa needs to learn from this experience and use it to bounce back and reach the next level of his game.
Thanks very much for reading 🙂
