Thomas Tuchel has admitted that Chelsea will need sit down with their goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga in the summer and reflect on his position at Stamford Bridge.
Kepa, 27, is the club’s second-choice goalkeeper that plays the understudy role to teammate Edouard Mendy.
The £155,000-a-week Spaniard has been forced to adjust to a back-up role since Mendy arrived in West London.
He’s played just 15 games across all competitions this season, keeping eight clean sheets in return.
Unfortunately, Kepa wasn’t selected at the weekend in Chelsea’s FA Cup semi-final win over Crystal Palace at the weekend, despite the fact he usually plays in a lot of domestic cup matches.
Tuchel’s been discussing the future of the shot-stopper when asked this week, suggesting talks will need to be held that could result in him leaving. He did share that the 27-year-old was “fantastic” in training yesterday, though.
“We need to ask him, and we need to be honest with him. And he needs to be honest with us, this is the most important,” Tuchel said.
“He is still our player, and we don’t know about the situation with the ownership, what is possible and what is not. So first of all, he is our player, and he is a fantastic guy to deal with this kind of situation, which is not easy for him.
“We need to be honest first of all [with Kepa], and he has to stay fully involved like he is; yesterday in training, he was simply fantastic. Then he has to be open with us. For me, nothing needs to change as I like him a lot, and we need strong goalkeepers because it’s a crucial position. But we need to reflect on it in the summer.”
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Surely, Kepa won’t be content with yet another season playing as a second-choice goalkeeper.
It’s been great to see him restore confidence in his game after some rocky patches at the Bridge, as he now looks fairly assured when he starts in-between the sticks. He’s an amazing professional from the outside looking in, too.
Hopefully, there are clubs in his homeland Spain that are prepared to sign him.
However, the Blues must be prepared to take quite a hit on the £71million they paid for him in 2018.
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