Frank Sinclair, the former Blues defender, has spoken about Chelsea‘s complicated Kepa situation.
Frank Sinclair Speaks on the Kepa Arrizabalaga Situation
Kepa was signed from Athletic Bilbao in 2018 for £71.6million. However, he did not live up to expectations, and following a poor run of form, Lampard dropped him from the starting squad. Instead, veteran Willy Caballero was placed between the sticks. In recent weeks, Chelsea are being linked with many top goalkeepers. However, Sinclair thinks if Kepa is just given more time, he can develop to be one of the best.
Sinclair Speaks
Sinclair told Genting Bet, “Personally, I’d like Kepa to be given another season to prove himself and settle in the Premier League. When you look at other foreign keepers, sometimes it takes them up to 18 months to settle in the Premier League before you start to get the best out of them – you only have to look at David De Gea at Man United. If Kepa does settle, I don’t think there are going to be many better goalkeepers than him in the Premier League anyway.”
He also pointed out how talented Kepa is in many areas: “I do think that he is a good enough keeper and you can see that when he came back into the team, he started to show the form that he came to the club with initially. So, perhaps he just needed the ‘kick up the bum’ to push on again because he is certainly a talented goalkeeper, who has everything in his game. There is no particular part of his game that I think he struggles with in particular – he’s good with his feet, his positional sense and commanding his area is strong and he’s a great shot-stopper. It’s just about his relationship with Frank and how he can continue to adapt after coming over from Spain.”
Further Insights
Sinclair points out the many positive qualities in Kepa’s game and shows a glimpse of what the Spaniard might be able to develop into. However, there are even more reasons why keeping Kepa is the right decision for the Blues. The main reason being financial issues. Signing a new top keeper would be a very expensive endeavour, and one Chelsea might not want to partake in during this time. The Coronavirus pandemic has hurt many clubs financially, including Chelsea, making it much harder to complete deals. Not only would it be hard to sign a new keeper, but getting rid of Kepa would also be hard, considering how pricey he is.
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