There has been much said about goalkeepers at Chelsea in the last few weeks, and that is largely because number one Edouard Mendy has been making many mistakes in the sticks.
Mendy was in superb form before he went to AFCON last year, but since then he has been struggling with form and making some big errors, this has led to concerns over whether he should continue as Chelsea’s number one, and also bought in the Kepa Arrizabalaga questions once again.
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Kepa wanted to leave over the summer and many expected him to do just that and to be replaced by a new stopper at the club. But that wasn’t to be and didn’t happen, but not for want of trying.
Thomas Tuchel has addressed the above now and says that Kepa is ‘absolutely ready to play’ should he be called on. Yet there are no indications that he will be doing that anytime soon and is maintaining his trust in Mendy.
“First, we deal with the players and then we tell you how we dealt with it,” Tuchel said as reported by Football London. “It’s [goalkeeper] like I say, a very sensitive position in football in general. And not everything is about pure quality and decision making, it’s also about the feel, that you feel the confidence.
“Sometimes it’s also having luck as well. Somebody sent me an interesting quote about Napoleon, who asked his generals that they should not only have the best quality but also that they are lucky generals. This is also what you need from leaders and goalkeepers, and that they have a kind of momentum in which if they make a little mistake it’s not punished.
“He at the moment gets punished a lot for not a lot that he does wrong. But there are no doubts in my mind, the situation is calm, we have two fantastic goalkeepers, two fantastic guys. We are aware of it that he is in that kind of situation but first, we deal inside.
“[Kepa] checked his options [in the summer] which we were aware of,” Tuchel explained. “They were not satisfying for him or for us, so he stayed. I am very happy about that. I was always very clear with him that I wanted him to stay. And from my point of view, he’s absolutely ready to play. It’s on us if we give him the chance or not but he’s 100% ready given how he behaves and how trains.”
He’s ready but you still dont play him. Tuchel better have a rethink about using Mendy with his continuous poor form. Kepa deserves some play time. And that time is now.