It can still get worse!
Boehly is going to ruin Chelsea (hopefully)
- Thread starter UnitedSofa
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
I’d say out if your list Ward is the only starter who’s on a par and as poor as him. The others are all better.
Agree to disagree. Kepa made a lot of mistakes when he joined and has a huge price tag to live up to, but he’s been solid this season, in my opinion.
Kepa is 3rd in the league this year in PSxG +/-. He's been one of the best keepers in the league pretty unequivocally and was by far our best player against Brighton (obviously that being the absolute lowest of bars).
No Chelsea player has been one of the best at anything this season
He has improved in some aspects since his low point in 2020 but his major flaws/shortcomings are still glaring weaknesses that continues to cost us. I find it almost pointless to be a decent shotstopper when he is facing close range shots from inside the box when he then lets weak shots from outside the box slip through his fingers like that Asensio goal. Finding a new GK this summer is imperative.
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Au contraire mon frere - many many Chelsea players have been among the very best at not giving a shit and at underperforming. Checkmate!
But to put it simply re: Kepa - we're tied with West Ham for 10th most shots on target allowed but have allowed the 4th fewest goals in the league. 6th in total saves and 4th in save percentage - the reality is were it not for Kepa our season would be even more calamitous.
Oh on that I agree completely. Diogo Costa would be the dream signing for me.
You're not allowed to sign anyone else for at least a year now. Thems the rules.
Honestly that might be a better strategy than what we've been doing...
I think that the guy who took Woking from the Conference to the Champions League in 6 seasons would at the very least have enough cop on to avoid signing Cucurella for £60m!
Na. The same thing happens when every top team struggles, you go to any Liverpool forum and you’ll see Allison being put forward as their player of the year. All that stat means is you give up a stupid amount of chances to lesser teams but the drop in quality means they aren’t good enough to take advantage of such chances hence the save rate.
DDG was our player of the season 3 times during our lean spell (I think)
Allison will be Liverpools this season, Kepa will be yours as well.
Well here’s hoping the chelsea board back the fans and keep Kepa. He’s an absolute calamity.
After spending as much as the rest of the pl combined, you are probably going to finish 14th.
Last year banter against United was justified. But Chelsea should have it worse. The difference is that teams and the press don't actually care: no one wants to put 4 against you, because it doesn't make any difference. No one would care. The reason is that united is just a much bigger club.
Well, that's where the PSxG +/- stat comes into it. He's saved 4.5 more goals than would be expected given the quality of chances faced.
Because the striker taking the shot are playing for Southampton , Bournemouth etc. means nothing.
Just saw the stats, it’s the likes of Brentford, Fulham etc that’s up here, hell Allison is shitting over everybody and I wouldn’t say he has stood out at all.
Unless we’re saying Pickford is up there for keeper of the year?
But that's not how the stat works. Post-shot xG removes the influence of the defenders and focuses solely on where exactly the ball is in the mouth of the goal, how hard it was hit, and from how far away. It's the purest metric for shot-stopping that takes a lot of the variables you're alluding to out of it.
Pickford has had a decent bounce-back season as well, solidly above average. Wouldn't have him up there with the best in the league though, mind.
I’ve noticed that you often choose strange hills to die on but being so determined to prove Chelsea’s keeper is crap that you’ll use the logic on view in this post is quite something.
In other news, Allison is probably the best keeper in the league and Pickford has been one of the better ones. As United found out last week. Using your logic all those saves be made against us count double or something?
Pickford has been good for 2-3 years now. Still suffers from his calamities and eccentricity which means people overlook him in the England debate and keep arguing he's crap. The stats don't lie.
Yes, if he cuts those out then he can be a top keeper, issue is at a top cub, this is essentially what you avoid in a keeper
Even that has died down though. It isn't any worse now than someone like Ramsdale, Ederson or even Allison this season.
I think Allison, Raya and Martinez are probably the standouts in the upper tier of PL GKs but Pickford holds his own in that 2nd tier.
I’m not saying he’s crap, I’m saying you can’t really use those stats to say he’s been one of the top keeper in the league.
DDG has the most clean sheets in the league yet I don’t think he’s anywhere near the best this season. Nick Pope is second and he’s even worse with rash decisions he makes when coming out for the ball.
All you’re doing is quoting the busiest keepers in the league to me, being busy doesn’t mean you’re on form. In fact that’s one of the biggest tests of a keeper moving up, can they do it and keep concentration playing for a top side with less to do than continually being on your toes making save after save that doesn’t really matter because you’re usually 2 down anyway. Keepers in the middling to worse sides in the league routinely top these stats for a reason.
Isn’t that all that a keeper can affect with his positioning, command of the box etc? A good to great keeper and lessen these stats before the shot even comes in.
Someone who can organise the players in front of them?
We’ll agree to disagree but there’s a reason why keepers of smaller teams top these stats or are we accepting Kepa is so much better than the likes of Ramsdale and Ederson?
Again, I’m not saying Kepa isn’t a bad keeper or anything, all I’m saying is these stats shouldn’t be how it’s appraised, that’s all.
I mean, it's widely acknowledged that Ramsdale and (especially) Ederson aren't the best shot stoppers. But make up for it with other qualities.
Sure - that's all true and you have to look at other stats for that (e.g. crosses claimed, success at claiming crosses, even sweeping to a lesser extent, etc). But the criticism for Kepa has always been his shot stopping - for instance in 19/20 he was historically bad (something like -14.5 by PSxG if I remember correctly). Ever since Tuchel came in, Kepa has improved considerably. As @WeePat points out though, he's certainly not perfect and is extremely poor on long shots and at commanding his area, but I think the stats are pretty conclusive that Chelsea would be a whole lot worse without him playing well this season overall.
Also, Ederson is a very mediocre to below-average shot stopper and has been for years - he's in the City team because he's the best GK in the world on the ball and City give up so few chances that his contributions to their attack are more meaningful. There's a reason why he's never come close to displacing Allison at international level.
Out of interest, if none of Alisson, Kepa, De Gea, Pope and Pickford are among the best goalkeepers in the league this season, who are? Would you mind posting your top 5 for this season?
Last year he was a bit below average shot-stopping wise but this year is back in line with where he was in 20/21. Agreed that he gets too much stick at times - though given that both he and Kepa are short and consequently there's a cap on how effective they can be at commanding the box, any drop-off in terms of shot-stopping has an outsized (hah) impact on performance overall.
Stats are good but it doesn't negate the eye test completely and last season without Pickford we would have been relegated.
Yeah makes sense. Didn't watch him closely enough to comment but I certainly remember him standing on his head against us at the business end of the season that year
What has this got to do with Todd Boehly though?
Ramsdale
Ederson
Raya
Leno
Allison
Then De Gea
we spend 3 seasons lamenting David saying all he does is stop shots then posters push a shot stopping shot as the be all and end all. Kepa cannot control his box, he is woeful at punching the ball with his little slaps and his biggest weakness seems to be his inability to deal with shots from distance.
Every time a top team struggles the keeper gets all the faint praise about at least he can hold his head high because he isn’t in the outfield fecking it up and then it snowballs every single time.
De Gea is the biggest example of this. Stay on his line and play behind deep blocks that doesn’t ask him to play from the back? World class, Madrid are calling. He has his eye in every match because he’s asked to do so much.
Come off his line, close down shots instead of waiting for them and start play from deep? In the process of taking a pay cut.
The less David is asked to do shot stopping wise the worse he got.
But it’s more all round that I’m arguing here. For years all we have said is to be a top, modern keeper you need to be good with the ball at your feet. You need to start plays from the back and be able to switch it etc etc, all the good stuff
You and Liverpool abandoned that many months ago. Everton never tried it. I know the argument is that it isn’t the keepers fault but the manager as to how you play but is it fair to pretend that suddenly doesn’t matter now and put all the eggs into the shot stopping basket?
David may only be ok at distribution but at least he’s doing it at a consistent level. The only way we can say Kepa, Pickford and Allison are up there with the best is if they fit all the criteria right?
I may sound pedantic but it’s been beaten into my head over the years and it’s now hard for me to look past it. It’s like pretending a fullback is having a great season despite having a terrible final ball, it goes against all the valid criticism I’ve read over the last 3/4 years
Not many complaints about Kepa this season for me. Many people still seem to judge him harshly on his calamitous 2020 level but he's been much better than that for a couple of years now. Even when he was the 2nd choice keeper under Tuchel he still played at a decent level when called upon and a lengthy spell on the sidelines and out of the spotlight seem to have fixed whatever mental blocks were holding him back and he's been good once he got his starting place back.
I refuse to go down the rabbit hole whether he's been one of the top keepers in the league this season or not but at the very least I would say he's performing at the required level now. I have to say I'm still a bit cautious when it comes to Kepa and think GK is an area where a personnel change could improve us but in my opinion Kepa's performances this year have earned him another shot for next season and in the short term there are still some more important areas in the team to fix first.
So yeah, for me Kepa stays on as the starting keeper next season and will look at the situation again in the summer of 2024.
I refuse to go down the rabbit hole whether he's been one of the top keepers in the league this season or not but at the very least I would say he's performing at the required level now. I have to say I'm still a bit cautious when it comes to Kepa and think GK is an area where a personnel change could improve us but in my opinion Kepa's performances this year have earned him another shot for next season and in the short term there are still some more important areas in the team to fix first.
So yeah, for me Kepa stays on as the starting keeper next season and will look at the situation again in the summer of 2024.
Sorry but I'm a bit confused - Kepa is a top top keeper with his feet, and so is Alisson? Both are in the upper echelon of modern passing goalkeepers. No one is on Ederson's level but Kepa is comfortably one of the best on the ball - it's the biggest reason why he's kept Mendy out of the team.
I more or less took it as a given that this was accepted fact - the biggest problem for Kepa historically has been his shot-stopping, which has improved significantly over the past two seasons. He's never been poor with the ball at his feet - nor have I ever seen his ability in that aspect of goalkeeping questioned.
So he really addressed players in the dressing room. He should pick the team also.
He goes in after every game when he is there. This one made the media because he said how they played was embarrassing but the players could make it right with a win against Real Madrid.
Ah that simple task.
Apparently Boehly heavily criticised a senior playing just signed in the past year in the dressing room after the game. It's gotta be Raheem Sterling surely?
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...barrassing-dressing-room-brighton-real-madrid
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...barrassing-dressing-room-brighton-real-madrid
Sterling