Chelsea boss Frank Lampard has had a bit of a goalkeeper conundrum during his first spell as a Premier League manager.
Chelsea’s record signing Kepa Arrizabalaga has experienced some inconsistent form this season despite largely impressing during his first season.
As a result, Lampard dropped the Spanish international to the subs bench and started veteran backup Willy Caballero ahead of him for a few matches.
Kepa was stunned by this, but when given the chance to start matches again, he seemed to up his game a lot more and put in some better performances.
This was duly noted by Lampard, but rumours still started to fly that Chelsea could look to replace Kepa when the transfer window is open.
This is highly unlikely, according to The Athletic writer Liam Twomey.
The Chelsea correspondent took questions from fans on his article today and revealed that Lampard was impressed by Kepa’s response to being dropped.
He said:
“Lampard was impressed by Kepa’s response to losing his place and the way he performed when he got back into the team, doing plenty to earn the clean sheet he got in that 2-0 win against Liverpool at Stamford Bridge immediately prior to the pandemic shutdown.
“He still has a long way to go to even come close to justifying the massive fee Chelsea paid for him but selling him wasn’t really a viable option before COVID-19 froze football (how many elite clubs are even looking for a starting goalkeeper, let alone prepared to pay huge money for one?).
“Now, with so many approaching the next transfer window with caution, it’s even less likely that Chelsea would be able to get value for him. The pragmatic choice in the short term is to keep working with him and hope he can make significant improvement. At 25, that’s still very possible.”
