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Was it Lampard..or was it just Kepa?

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posted on 31/10/20

comment by Blarmy (U14547)

posted on 31/10/20

I do blame Kepa

posted on 31/10/20

I personally think people enjoy overstating how bad Kepa has been. Sure he's not the keeper we hoped for when he came in. He's not confident taking high balls and he is not commanding enough of his area.

That said I think there's not been so much of a witch hunt over him as a witch trial. He started getting the blame for every goal we conceded with people trying to analyse every thing that went past him to try and apportion blame to him.

It's my personal view that defensive frailties in the team have been as much to blame for our poor record of conceding, as much as it has been to do with Kepa!

comment by CSTP (U1453)

posted on 1/11/20

I mean the real test would be to play Mendy in the same team without Chilwell and Silva in front of him.

But yes the Utd and Sevilla games I'm pretty sure we would have lost with Kepa in goal, and everyone would be using them as another example of why Lampard is failing to sort out the defence.

posted on 1/11/20

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

comment by Devil (U6522)

posted on 1/11/20

Thing is hopefully we won't have to know how much of an influence Kepa had if Lampard works out this imbalance soon, which has exposed the entire defense consistently for pretty much his entire reign so far. Kepa did alright for Sarri, as did the whole defense (bar Alonso after the first few months) but he had a good balance from day one.

Also, totally unrelated to the point of the article, but Mendy's a bit meh to me. Although I never vocalized it (much) I had suspicions about Kepa from the beginning - he was decent/competent in 18/19, but something about him wasn't invoking trust in me, and Mendy's giving me similar vibes but for different reasons. He's good aerially but no Cech or Courtois, his saving technique is iffy - always two hands/feet, parries everything, feels like clangers are in him, shootout vs. Spurs made him look ridiculous, etc...

I'm aware as a late 90's Chelsea fan I've grown up on nothing but exceptional keepers so I'm spoilt af, even de Goey was class, and at 20mil he is value for money where Kepa wasn't, but yeah... not in on the love-in yet, need to see more to prove my instincts are off.

posted on 1/11/20

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

posted on 1/11/20

Can’t put it all on Kepa, Lampard has to take blame and the defenders have to take blame. But for me Kepa was the biggest issue, it can’t be easy trying to play your game when you’re constantly worrying about the guy behind you.

Hopefully Lampard has learned a few lessons and it helps that Mendy has looked top quality so far along with Silva being elite and Chilwell being far better than probably any of us expected.

comment by RtM (U1097)

posted on 1/11/20

shootout vs. Spurs made him look ridiculous, etc...


Thats a bit silly. He was here at the club for all of about 6 hrs.

comment by Superb (U6486)

posted on 1/11/20

So obviously Kepa. Suddenly we're keeping clean sheets since he's been replaced. Clean sheets with Kepa in goal were nothing more than a pipe dream.

posted on 1/11/20

The point is, that the back 4,should be working as one unit along with the keeper, it wasn't,this point seems to have been addressed.

posted on 1/11/20

comment by Superb (U6486)
posted 48 minutes ago
So obviously Kepa. Suddenly we're keeping clean sheets since he's been replaced. Clean sheets with Kepa in goal were nothing more than a pipe dream.
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Why so obviously Kepa, Superb?

Given that 50% of the defence has changed and now starting to become a little more settled!

comment by Superb (U6486)

posted on 1/11/20

comment by BrummieBlue! (U3487)
posted 1 minute ago
comment by Superb (U6486)
posted 48 minutes ago
So obviously Kepa. Suddenly we're keeping clean sheets since he's been replaced. Clean sheets with Kepa in goal were nothing more than a pipe dream.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Why so obviously Kepa, Superb?

Given that 50% of the defence has changed and now starting to become a little more settled!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Because Kepa has been an awful keeper for us who has completely unsettled our back line and made as shaky as hell in defence. A bad keeper can unsettle and inspire panic in a back line, just as a good keeper can inspire confidence and calmness. Kepa is the former sadly and our defence is going to improve exponentially now he's finally been dropped.

posted on 1/11/20

Kepa got ruined by our poor defence last season. He was fine in season 1 but then in season 2 the standard of our defence dropped, he got more exposed, began conceding more goals and then he was made into a scapegoat (partially by media, partially by Lampard actually) which lowered his confidence, which made him even worse and the whole thing just became a cycle to the point where he's been terrible this season whenever he's played.

posted on 1/11/20

I should say season 1 above was Kepa's first season, the one with Sarri.

posted on 1/11/20

comment by Superb (U6486)
posted 26 minutes ago
comment by BrummieBlue! (U3487)
posted 1 minute ago
comment by Superb (U6486)
posted 48 minutes ago
So obviously Kepa. Suddenly we're keeping clean sheets since he's been replaced. Clean sheets with Kepa in goal were nothing more than a pipe dream.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Why so obviously Kepa, Superb?

Given that 50% of the defence has changed and now starting to become a little more settled!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Because Kepa has been an awful keeper for us who has completely unsettled our back line and made as shaky as hell in defence. A bad keeper can unsettle and inspire panic in a back line, just as a good keeper can inspire confidence and calmness. Kepa is the former sadly and our defence is going to improve exponentially now he's finally been dropped.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Conversely a poor defence can leave a goalkeeper badly exposed and over the last 12 months our back four has been massively culpable of it.

I've looked at many of the goals that Kepa has let in and the majority of them are what you see keepers let in week in week out without an reproach to their performance, yet when it's Kepa the whole event is scrutinsed to see how the blame can be apportioned to him.

I think our defence will improve exponentially now that 50% of it has been replaced.

Too easy just to put the blame on Kepa in my opinion

comment by Blarmy (U14547)

posted on 1/11/20

Cant underrate Silva being integrated either tbf

posted on 1/11/20

comment by Blarmy (U14547)
posted 5 minutes ago
Cant underrate Silva being integrated either tbf
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And Chilwell who's been outstanding so far and done much to allay my fears over his signing!

comment by Blarmy (U14547)

posted on 1/11/20

Equally James is progressing and Azpi is back to his reliable best

We could just do with one of the other CBs pushing on too and we are set

posted on 1/11/20

Kepa under Sarri still had the worst statistics for the league for save %age, that hasn’t changed since he’s come to Lampard. I do think Lampard’s system letting more goals on the ‘keeper contributes but having a ‘keeper who is as anomalously bad as Kepa in goal led to the ridiculous number of goals we were conceding. A normal ‘keeper even with letting more shots on goal shouldn’t let in as many as we have with Kepa.

posted on 1/11/20

comment by Stretchy Mendy (U1641)
posted 0 seconds ago
Kepa under Sarri still had the worst statistics for the league for save %age, that hasn’t changed since he’s come to Lampard. I do think Lampard’s system letting more goals on the ‘keeper contributes but having a ‘keeper who is as anomalously bad as Kepa in goal led to the ridiculous number of goals we were conceding. A normal ‘keeper even with letting more shots on goal shouldn’t let in as many as we have with Kepa.
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And throughout his whole Chelsea career, as of last summer, his save %age is the worst in PL history for any ‘keeper who has played 10+ games. 730 out of 730. If you think people are singling him out, you’re absolutely right, because he is almost bafflingly bad. We all knew these stats but I think Mendy coming in and our subsequent improvements supports even more just how significant a problem Kepa was. Even with Silva, Chilwell in, even with Lampard’s more conservative set up vs United and Sevilla, I don’t think anything could have changed until Kepa was replaces.

comment by Blarmy (U14547)

posted on 1/11/20

Kepa needs to go save his career in Spain

If he can't see that he is doomed

Forget some notion of trying to make it work with us

posted on 1/11/20

Kepa League save %age last season: 56.5%

Literally every single other starting ‘keeper in the league: 63.5%-77.6%

There’s just too much evidence to ignore that a lot of our defensive woes could be down to having such an anomalously bad ‘keeper.

posted on 1/11/20

Under Sarri, with Kepa, we led the PL for highest proportion of shots leading to goals. At one point (April 2019) 44% of every shot on target led to a goal.

Sarri’s system may have protected him more, and the more goals we let in on goal under Lampard exacerbates the problem. I agree that could then lead to Kepa getting even worse with confidence/form. But the significance of the problem was always there.

posted on 1/11/20

the more *shots we let in on goal under Lampard

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