Definitely settling after his wobble.  Good to see, and may he continue going from strength to strength.

And another penalty save. 

Best Chelsea goalkeeper at saving penalties since Carlo Cudicini. 

Also made a couple nice saves during the game as well. Credit to Kepa he's stringing together a few decent performances now. 

 

He started off fine under Sarri and now has a resurgence under Tuchel, you have to wonder if it was poor coaching under Lamps that led to his decline.

Redemption Indeed! As far as the errors go things remain to be seen but, he's definitely shown his quality and worth to this team.

Definitely improved, against Spurs he didn't make great saves, but definitely cut out his usual mishaps and competed well when the high ball arrive in the box. If he keeps this up, nothing wrong with having a 72M second choice GK, we need depth everywhere.

20 hours ago, ForeverCarefree said:

And another penalty save. 

Best Chelsea goalkeeper at saving penalties since Carlo Cudicini. 

Also made a couple nice saves during the game as well. Credit to Kepa he's stringing together a few decent performances now. 

If I am not wrong Caballero recors against penalties is better than kepa 

16 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

If I am not wrong Caballero recors against penalties is better than kepa 

Can't say I remember Caballero saving too many penalties for Chelsea?  

Kepa has now won us three penalty shoot outs and even made a penalty stop in the infamous 2019 League Cup final. 

If he keeps this up, he'll be a very handy backup GK to Mendy.

He's slowly rebuilding his confidence after good performances against Villarreal in the Super Cup and against Villa a few days ago.

I've enjoyed Tuchel's strategy of constantly praising him in public. It's like he's got a post-it note tacked onto his press conference agenda: "P.S. Say something nice about Kepa".

Have to give some praise to Kepa. He is never a 71m player but he is pretty damn good goalie to have. He will not grow taller so catching ball in his penalty area in corners will always be a problem but he is very good shot stopper anyway. He is also a good distributor of the ball. I also like his attitude and clear motivation to be a top player. He also commands the area vocally.

The label of being the most expensive goalie will always haunt him for sure but I am sure he is okay with it by now.

We will never get our money back but man I love to see him between the sticks in a penalty shootout.

I think we are lucky to have Kepa

 Can't fault him last night, he played well. The time out of the spotlight has allowed him to regain confidence and show us the player we had hoped he would be when he signed. 

1 hour ago, evissy said:

Have to give some praise to Kepa. He is never a 71m player but he is pretty damn good goalie to have. He will not grow taller so catching ball in his penalty area in corners will always be a problem but he is very good shot stopper anyway. He is also a good distributor of the ball. I also like his attitude and clear motivation to be a top player. He also commands the area vocally.

The label of being the most expensive goalie will always haunt him for sure but I am sure he is okay with it by now.

We will never get our money back but man I love to see him between the sticks in a penalty shootout.

I think we are lucky to have Kepa

Call me mad but I actually think he was a £71m player when we bought him, he was just unfortunate. Came into a foreign league under a foreign manager in Sarri, who was himself making a transition into a foreign league. Didn’t help that he probably spoke little English. I actually think he was Ok in his 1st season. Lamps then came in who was green and had his own ideas, the tactics probably didn’t help much. Lamps then gave him up on him towards the end of his 1st season, which was fair as it’s a results game. Lamps bought in Mendy as his replacement, and I reckon he had plans to get rid of him. Since Tuchel came in he has been a man reborn. All the mistakes he displayed under Lamps suddenly disappeared, stopped panicking under pressure and he can be depended on to save a pen.

Probably helps that he feels valued under Tuchel, and he has a good relationship with the other goalies. Personally I have zero concerns regarding Mendy’s absence during AFCON.  I reckon should Mendy have 3 consecutive poor games, Tuchel wouldn’t hesitate to bring Kepa back in. As we are still in all competitions, I reckon he will get loads of games. 
Was just thinking this morning that if Barca weren’t skint, they would have made an offer for him in Jan as Ter Stegen has been poor.

10 minutes ago, ducavis said:

Call me mad but I actually think he was a £71m player when we bought him, he was just unfortunate. Came into a foreign league under a foreign manager in Sarri, who was himself making a transition into a foreign league. Didn’t help that he probably spoke little English. I actually think he was Ok in his 1st season. Lamps then came in who was green and had his own ideas, the tactics probably didn’t help much. Lamps then gave him up on him towards the end of his 1st season, which was fair as it’s a results game. Lamps bought in Mendy as his replacement, and I reckon he had plans to get rid of him. Since Tuchel came in he has been a man reborn. All the mistakes he displayed under Lamps suddenly disappeared, stopped panicking under pressure and he can be depended on to save a pen.

Probably helps that he feels valued under Tuchel, and he has a good relationship with the other goalies. 

Agree with this yet think we will also miss Mendy.

Mendy is much better for set pieces and long distance shot stopping think teams will seek to test Kepa on set pieces.

Yet as a second keeper he has good reflexes and is a good penalty stopper, it could be worse.

I think losing out on Alisson pumped his price from 45m to 71m. Or in around that. We had no hand to play and made a big error with him.

First season under Sarri he was very solid. I remember no one complaining about him.

Anyway he is very very solid and probably many teams are looking to buy him. 

1 hour ago, evissy said:

I think losing out on Alisson pumped his price from 45m to 71m. Or in around that. We had no hand to play and made a big error with him.

First season under Sarri he was very solid. I remember no one complaining about him.

Anyway he is very very solid and probably many teams are looking to buy him. 

Nothing hiked his price up, that was his release clause and Bilbao have a strict pay the clause or do one policy.

There was definitely observations on him conceding many long shots, weak wrists and tendency to sometimes get caught flat footed but we by inlarge tried to convince ourselves it was a first season in England thing. Even with his improved form under Tuchel that can still get exploited (Tielmens said himself he was told to aim for the top corner if he got the chance).

He's turned into a solid enough cup keeper and I give him his dues for that but playing week in week out again I can't help but feel some of the frustrations will creep back up to the fore.

Edited December 23, 20214 yr by Argo

Shout out to this man. Hasn't put a foot wrong when asked upon. Clearly getting his confidence back. Long may it continue!

3 minutes ago, Jackbuchanan said:

Shout out to this man. Hasn't put a foot wrong when asked upon. Clearly getting his confidence back. Long may it continue!

He did tonight and inadvertently played Kane offside.

That can only happen against Spurs.

He's honestly largely been very good when called upon since Tuchel arrived. He was obviously a complete mess and without an ounce of confidence before but he's looked like a very solid goalkeeper lately.

Glad to have him in form whilst Mendy is away. He hasn't been tested with long shots though which is his kryptonite, I still think we might concede a few cheap goals when teams take advantage of that.

Was that an intentional offside trap btw? Thought it looked weird the way he rushed out, lucky for him Christensen was playing Kane off as I don't think he was on the same page.

I can only say that Tuchel has revitalized him. He was so short of confidence for the past few years

Edited January 13, 20224 yr by Deino

7 hours ago, sonic90 said:

Was that an intentional offside trap btw? Thought it looked weird the way he rushed out, lucky for him Christensen was playing Kane off as I don't think he was on the same page.

I think he tried to do that. He would say so anyway..

We'll see how he does vs the most potent team in the league now. If he saves a clear-cut chance against Sterling he'll slowly become a competition for Mendy!

I think Kepa has done really well in Mendy's absence.

His confidence no longer looks completely shot and it's good to see that he's providing decent competition for Mendy.