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Kepa The Keeper is a Gooner

Suburban Gooners Logo Suburban Gooners Logo Now I’m not going to claim a victory after yesterday insisting that ‘ACTION’ needed to happen from yesterday, but less than 12 hours after I’d written my thinkings yesterday on the need for new signings, a shiny new footballer rocked up at The Emirates. Maybe I need to use this power again soon?

Of course the reality was always going to be that the club would start to making moves as soon as July 1st came around. We needed to start the ball rolling, clearly this deal had been done last week and the club were able to formally announce the agreement on 1st July as the market opens and player sales start to move.

Kepa The ‘Keeper is a Gooner.

Back up: Tick.

And, in somewhat of an aesthetic little pleasure for me personally, he’s also got himself a proper reserve ‘keeper number too. Ooooh I like that. There’s so much of football these days that has lost it’s tradition, that having something that reminds you of the good ol’ days when goalies wore one, the reserve ‘keeper had 13 and your full backs wore two and three, send an irrational wave of joy through my body yesterday when it was announced.

This is a good deal for all involved, except Chelsea, which is also good. Chelsea get just £5million for a guy who was number one at an impressive Bournemouth last season, who I’d imagine they’d want at least between £10 – £15million from Bournemouth if they wanted to sign him permanently, but because of the release clause in his contract, is going for just £5million. That money, in today’s market, is superb work for a guy who will probably only start half a dozen games next season. I just did a quick check on the Bank of England Calculator for what £3million in 2014 is worth in today’s money. In 2014 we signed Ospina from Nice for that figure and the value of that in today’s market comes out at £4.15million. So we’re basically playing a little over what we paid for Ospina back in the day. No problem with that at all. If we get through, let’s say three rounds of the League Cup and have the same in the FA Cup, then maybe a Champions League dead rubber (fingers crossed) come next year, he’s probably only looking at six to ten matches, maximum. So this is brilliant. The loan deal for Neto last year was, frankly, a bit bonkers because we couldn’t play him in the League Cup and when the FA Cup came around we got yet another tough game at home to United (on paper, anyway), so Raya had to play. But I think if that same match comes along again, Arteta is happy to give Kepa the cup games and I think that is the right thing to do. He’s also a guy who has enough experience under his belt and was impressive enough last season, that his past under Chelsea when he used to throw things in the net, is hopefully behind him.

Back then when he was signed for Chelsea for £71million in 2018 he was a 23-year-old lad (a baby for a goalie) who was simply Nicolas Pepe’d; all people talked about was his price tag because Bilbao played hard ball on the release fee back then. Chelsea were desperate and they needed to make a statement signing after being snubbed by Alisson, so they went for a young guy who had plenty of year’s ahead of him but not a lot of experience; before Bilbao sold him he’d played just 54 times for them across a couple of season’s as a 21 and 22-year old. So Chelsea did what Chelsea do (and continue to do today) – chucked a shedload of money at the problem just to get it done.

Kepa was never a £71million ‘keeper and probably should have gone for about a third of that.

But that’s water under the bridge. Because now he has found himself to be a very capable goalie that we have locked in for at least this season. He will back himself to try to force his way ahead of Raya, which is what you want, then maybe next summer or the summer after if he hasn’t managed to do that, we can move him on for probably about the same money as we’ve brought him. Smart move from Arsenal.

But now you’ve whet our appetite, Arsenal, so we want more. I think most of us are guessing that comes in the shape of Zubimendi and if that deal can be announced today, then that’ll feel good too, because it means another one in the bag. Before then, however, I suspect the club will announce the Thomas Partey departure, but I suspect the way it’ll be managed in the media is you do that and then give it an hour or two before giving the good news on Zubi. That’s how I’d let it play out personally anyway. I wonder if the club with take the five jersey from Partey and hand it straight to the Spaniard? He wore four for Sociedad, three before then, but he’s also worn six, 18 and five for Spain. So my gut feel is that – in the most obvious and visual demonstration that he is Partey’s replacement – he will adopt the same number as the Ghanaian had.

Of course the club also have Norgaard coming in and perhaps there’s been chat’s between the club and the two players? Because KT’s departure means number three is free, so perhaps Zubimendi takes three and Norgaard can have five?

I guess none of this really matters, but it’s fun to have a little speculation in the absence of any real news. We all know the important thing is delivering on the pitch.

Apart from the Kepa news, which I think timing makes sense because it means he doesn’t get glossed over as an announcement by a bigger name coming in before him, there’s not really a lot else going on. I suspect it’s because they will be knocking down signings one by one and if I’m managing the announcements, I’m building up to them in order of importance. So that might even mean that Norgaard goes first. He’s the Jorginho replacement and rotation option, so do that one next, before making a big announcement towards the end of the week on the big one in Zubimendi. Let’s see if that’s the case.

Back tomorrow with musings.

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Gooner born in 1982 from Harlow, Essex, now living in Uxbridge. I say what I see - frequently wrong, but hey, it's just an opinion piece, right? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.