Where next for Kepa Arrizabalaga as Spaniard begins search for January move?
The 26-year old remains calm, but is now on the hunt for a new club
It really is a nightmare tale, the story of Kepa Arrizabalaga, Chelsea’s £71.6 million Goalkeeper who signed a £170,000-a-week 7-year contract at the club in 2018.
Since then, he has gone from being Chelsea’s long-term number one keeper for the foreseeable future, to firmly only a backup who is used only when new number one Edouard Mendy is injured or needs a rest.
He arrived with ambition, and Chelsea fans read the reports of a new player that the club had been scouting and pursuing for many years. A modern day goalkeeper who was a good shot-stopper, and is excellent at playing out from the back - exactly what the club wanted.
But now, he looks a mere shadow of the man who arrived from Atletico Bilbao as a regular Spanish international looking close to taking the number one role from David de Gea for his country. He looks fearful anytime he is between the sticks, and his confidence has disappeared entirely.
Chelsea and Frank Lampard had no choice but to replace him as the number one this summer, he had become extremely unreliable and continued to make constant errors leading to goals, and he was failing to stop easy shots at goal.
I feel sorry for Kepa I really do, his career is going down the pan, and he doesn’t look like he is mentally strong enough to claw it back.
The only chance he has now is to disappear from the spotlight in England, and join a new club where he is given the time and the patience to rediscover his form and his confidence.
If he wants any chance of playing in this summers Euros with Spain, then he simply must move in January; which we understand is certainly possible and has been a discussion that Kepa’s entourage have been having with Lampard and the club in recent months.
Kepa wants to leave, and Chelsea are ready to sanction it.
However, it is simply not as easy as that.
‘Kepa Arrizabalaga has begun a search for teams to join in January, albeit nothing of note has presented itself yet’ reports Simon Johnson of The Athletic this week.
He also says that Chelsea are hoping for an outcome that suits all parties - but here could be the problem.
A loan move is most likely in January, but who will be willing to pay his high wages? Even for a loan deal, it could become unaffordable for most clubs. Chelsea could offer to support and pay for some of his wages, but they will need to weigh up the positives and negatives of doing this.
Increasing his value by allowing him to go out and get game time would be a wise move, but this would rely on him playing well.
However, anything is surely better than him not playing at all and his value dropping by the day.
I could see a return to Spain as the most likely outcome, with Sevilla and Valencia both showing an interest on taking him on loan.
Whatever happens, Chelsea are set to lose millions on him and will live to massively regret signing Kepa.