While it ended up backfiring, Thomas Tuchel ’s decision to bring on Kepa Arrizabalaga specifically for Sunday’s Carabao Cup final penalty shootout remains the right decision when comparing his penalty save percentage to Edouard Mendy’s.
Kepa was brought on with less than a minute remaining of extra-time, despite Mendy producing a man-of-the-match performance to hold out Liverpool across 120 minutes.
But rather than be Chelsea ’s hero of the hour, the Spanish keeper was the villain, failing to save any of Liverpool’s 11 penalties before putting his spot-kick high over the bar to hand the Reds the trophy.
It marked a sour end to what had been an impressive Carabao Cup campaign for Kepa, who had started all of the Blues’ previous five games in the competition.
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Though the decision to bring him on for Mendy now looks to have been ill-advised, Tuchel was actually putting Chelsea in the best position possible to win the shootout.
Kepa had won six of the eight shootouts he had taken part in before Sunday’s showpiece event, with all of those victories requiring the Spaniard to force two misses.
The most recent examples of Kepa’s shootout prowess actually came in this season’s Carabao Cup.
The Spaniard was in goal for the wins over Aston Villa and Southampton in Chelsea’s first two outings, both of which came on penalties.
Against Villa, Kepa saved from Marvelous Nakamba and forced Ashley Young to miss, while against the Saints, he denied both Theo Walcott and Will Smallbone.
Given Kepa’s record, Tuchel even tried exactly the same tactic in the UEFA Super Cup, when the Spaniard came on late to replace Mendy for a shootout.
That time, he rewarded his manager’s faith in full, saving from both Aissa Mandi and Raul Albiol to hand Chelsea a 6-5 win over Villarreal.
He has previously been part of shootout wins over both Tottenham, Eintracht Frankfurt and France Under-19s in his career.
But his two previous defeats were foreboding for Sunday’s loss, with Liverpool also scoring all of their penalties against him in 2019’s Super Cup and Manchester City beating Chelsea 4-3 in the League Cup final the same year.
All of that means that before Sunday, he had faced 40 penalties in a shootout, saving 10, forcing three others to miss the target and seeing 27 scored, a conversion rate of 67.5 per cent.
Mendy on the other hand, was not far away from Kepa’s success rate, seeing 18 of the 26 shootout penalties he has faced being scored, a conversion of 69.2 per cent.
The Senegal international has lost three shootouts and won two, including the Africa Cup of Nations final at the start of February.
But the difference between the duo becomes something of a chasm when penalties faced in non-shootout situations are taken into account.
Mendy has seen 30 of the 32 penalties he has faced during normal time hit the back of the net, including seven since he joined Chelsea.
The only two players to be unsuccessful against him have been Sergio Aguero and Toulouse’s Jonas Martin.
That gives the keeper a save/miss success rate of just 6.25 per cent, which is woeful in comparison to Kepa.
The Spaniard has seen 17 of the 24 in-game penalties he has faced go in, a save/miss success rate of 29.17 per cent.
Overall that means that Kepa has a success rate of 68.8 per cent against him when combining both in-game and shootout penalties, with Liverpool’s 11 spot-kicking lifting that to 73.3 per cent.
That is still massively favourable to Mendy, who has an 82.2 per cent success rate against him in penalty situations.
So while it looks to have been an error of judgement, Tuchel’s move to bring on Kepa for the shootout handed Chelsea the best chance to win.
