A new man between the sticks?
Chelsea have completed the signing of Edouard Mendy (5.0m) from Rennes for a 22m transfer fee after nearly 2 years of monitoring the goalkeeper. This news will be a relief for most Chelsea fans after the recurring mistakes of current number 1 Kepa Arrizabalaga (5.0m). However, I’ve taken off my blue-tinted glasses for a second and taken time to assess what this really means for Chelsea, FPL, and more specifically if we should be looking more closely at Chelsea assets for our defences. You need only read the comment of the Chelsea director; Marina Granovskaia saying that the signing of Mendy will ”compliment” the squad suggesting this is more than just a straight replacement.
Who is Mendy?
Like many of you, I wasn’t familiar with Mendy before he was linked and close to signing for Chelsea. But if we look at his time at Rennes, we can begin to understand why he was sought after by the 2012 Champions League winners. Making a total of 86 appearances for Reims between 2016-2019 helping them gain promotion to Ligue 1 and 34 appearances for Rennes, Mendy certainly has experience. But were those appearances any good? Well, last season Mendy kept 9 clean sheets in 24 appearances. Contrast this to Kepa who kept 8 in 33 appearances. While these numbers won’t set the world alight, they do indicate that Mendy is at least on par with Kepa. His save percentage during the 2019/20 campaign of 76.3% is a clear cut above Kepa’s 53.5%.
Is he better than the incumbent?
It’s easy to sit here and laugh this question off with the reply ”well he can’t be any worse” but say for a minute that Mendy does get thrown in straight away against West Brom. Chelsea fans can be ruthless and if he overplays with his feet at the back subsequently allowing a soft West Brom goal, fans will soon be asking who this Kepa imposter is. Now I’m not out to just bash Kepa here, far from it. A moment that stands out for me from his tenure was his quick reaction save against Watford in the dying moments of the game at Vicarage Road last season. I can assure you that day 95% of Chelsea fans considered him a hero myself included. But as we all know, football is a ruthless business and you can go from hero to zero just as quickly as Manchester City winning the league at home to QPR.
If my fantasy team is anything to go by, I’m a complete advocate of second chances but it feels that Kepa has had around six or seven and failed to iron out these persistent and costly errors. Fans have been crying out for a Kepa replacement for a while. Some even after the Carabao cup final fiasco in which Kepa point blank refused to be subbed off by then manager Sarri after it appeared he was injured. This brought a fair bit of embarrassment to the club and ruined the credibility of Sarri as Manager.
What does this mean for FPL?
Mendy is the same price as Kepa at 5.0m so if anyone was brave enough to have Kepa in from Gameweek 1 it would be a straight swap to Mendy if he was to usurp Kepa as number 1. But with far more value keepers available such as Matt Ryan (4.5m) at Brighton and Alex McCarthy (4.5m) at Southampton. it would be quite a risk signing Mendy without at least a few weeks for him settle in and to find his role at the club.
Late 24th September in the evening it was rumoured that Roma have put a loan offer in for Kepa. If this comes to fruition, then Mendy would be the clear next in line to take the number 1 spot. Whether this was the plan all along by Chelsea is unknown. If this were to happen in the next few weeks it would certainly make me take notice of Chelsea’s defence as a whole. One thought that has always put me off signing a Chelsea defender was ”Reece James (5.1m) looks good but Kepa is still in goal” But with Kepa potentially going out on loan and the signings of Thiago Silva (5.5m) and Ben Chilwell (5.5m) only strengthening their defence, looking at Chelsea’s backline has become a fantasy option once again.
Conclusion
Before investing in Chelsea’s defence again as I have done in previous seasons, I would be extremely cautious. Manager Frank Lampard is still very much experimenting whether he prefers James as a long term replacement to Cesar Azpilicueta (5.9m). He appears very much in favour and with one price rise already this season, James looks to be going from strength to strength. Just bear in mind he won’t score 35-yard screamers every week. I would like clear evidence of improvement in the backline before going anywhere near those Chelsea assets. I’d also want to see Mendy settle into the premier league as we know how some players have flourished foreign league but have struggled immensely in England.
It’s an interesting situation at Chelsea but not one I will drastically change my fantasy approach this season.
3 years, 7 months agoThanks for this!
Personally I'm all over Chelsea defenders as soon as I get a free transfer.
Numbers looked good last year, and the xGC prevented by Kepa was poor in comparison to Mendy who seemed to do okay.
If James starts again in GW3 which looks likely he's hard to ignore, and Chilwell should be nailed on. I'm excited to see what they can offer.