Is Kepa Arrizabalaga back to his best at Chelsea, or a short-term solution?

Kepa Arrizabalaga has been here before: a new manager, a clean slate, the chance to start over. By now, after all the trials and tribulations, the Spaniard probably knows not to get ahead of himself.

It has been four years since Arrizabalaga turned up at Chelsea, all bristling confidence and youthful innocence as he insisted that becoming the world’s costliest goalkeeper was no big deal, and experience will tell him that his current run as a starter for Graham Potter is not something to take for granted.

It tends to be complicated when it comes to Arrizabalaga. The sense is that he has never quite escaped the pressure of Chelsea paying £71.6m to sign him from Athletic Bilbao. It is not merely that the money feels absurd given that Arrizabalaga has mainly been a reserve since losing his place to Édouard Mendy in 2020; it is also that the sheer finances involved with the Spain international, whose transfer fee was accompanied by a lucrative seven-year deal, have put off clubs interested in loaning or buying him.

Who has benefited from the 28-year-old spending the past two years on the bench? Nobody can dispute that he should no longer be at Stamford Bridge, even if he will hope to make his sixth consecutive start when Chelsea visit Milan in the Champions League on Tuesday evening. He has spent too much time on the sidelines and if the pieces had fallen differently last summer then Arrizabalaga could well have found himself playing for Napoli this season.

It has been frustrating for Arrizabalaga, whose decline began when Frank Lampard replaced Maurizio Sarri in 2019. He stayed professional after losing his place to Mendy, but was the trust ever there? Thomas Tuchel stuck with Mendy after replacing Lampard in January 2021.