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#4 Kepa Arrizabalaga
Thibaut Courtois, trying to force a Madrid move boycotted training from the Chelsea camp and gave indications that the club will need a new keeper. Roman Abramovich with the brilliant business mind of his went straight to Spain and broke the transfer record for a goalkeeper. The replacement for Thibaut Courtois was revealed to be a young Spaniard named Kepa Arizzabalaga.
The Spanish keeper was not popular among the English media but Spain had seen some great showing of reflexes from the youngster. Athletic Bilbao finished 16th last season but conceded only 49 goals. The teams at the top half had conceded about 50 to 60 goals. Kepa’s presence between the sticks was instrumental for Bilbao and kept them safe from relegation.
Kepa’s Chelsea move has been wonderful for the lad. He is having the exposure to the English play and also the media hype. So far Kepa has started in 10 of Chelsea’s games and kept 6 clean sheets. Kepa has edged out Alisson Becker in the save percentage which stands at 81% for the Spaniard. He is working with his feet too, helping Chelsea’s play from the back approach. Kepa has taken about 280 touches in the Premier League itself, which is a huge number for a keeper. He has also completed about 230 passes at 81% success rate.
More importantly, Kepa has looked solid when he needed to. The recent weekend game against Southampton displayed Kepa’s brilliance. Undeterred when shot at and saving shots easily, tipping the poised shot from Redmond just enough to deflect off the bar and saving another long shot soon after, Kepa looked in business mode this season and so far has adjusted to the new country with relative ease.
Kepa has made about 2.25 saves per match for Chelsea and a total of 18 saves in the Premier League.
Kepa gets the nod ahead of Alisson due to a couple of reasons. First, Kepa’s defensive line is not as good as that Alisson has, with Van Dijk hardly letting anybody go through. Another reason is because, of Alisson’s horrific mistake that led to a goal against Leicester.
