Chelsea should bring on Hugo Oliveira to develop Kepa Arrizabalaga

Chelsea should take advantage of Everton’s and Marco Silva’s misery by poaching now-unemployed goalkeeper coach Hugo Oliveira from Silva’s retinue.

Hugo Oliveira developed Jan Oblak and Ederson as teenagers at Benfica before hitching his professional cart to Marco Silva. Since then, Silva has given him the chance to work with Eldin Jakupovic (age 33) and David Marshal (32) at Hull City, Heurelho Gomes (36) and Orestis Karnezis (33) at Watford before landing at Everton with Jordan Pickford. If only Silva had recruited Oliveira a year earlier, the two would have started their time together at Olimpiacos where current West Ham backup Roberto (a mere 29 years old at the time) was the starter.

Oliveira may be looking for a way out of his compatriot’s transient career, perhaps to somewhere he can once again develop the world’s top goalkeeping prospects. Chelsea should extend that lifeline.

At £72 million, Kepa Arrizabalaga should be mentioned in the same category as Jan Oblak and Ederson. Instead, as we have been doing all season, fans are doing at least as much to defend him as the players in front of him. He has been left exposed habitually by his defenders and few keepers could do much about the resulting chances. But on others, he makes you wonder. And some of his communication and decision-making is even more difficult to understand, sometimes to almost Caballero-esque levels.

These are the areas where Hugo Oliveira could be so valuable to Arrizabalaga’s development and Chelsea’s ability to get the full value of their investment.

Speaking of Ederson, Oliveira said “at Benfica, he developed his technique and capacity to understand the game.”

Regarding Jan Oblak:

"We focused our work in the game and the game decisions, the capacity to take good decisions, to be ready to play high-level games, understand the game and the tactical movements, the game of eleven, of 22 and not only the specific game of the goalkeeper. – SportWitness"

Looking back at my notes and player ratings from games this season, these are exactly the attributes Arrizabalaga needs to develop.

One of the more obvious but not particularly unusual moments came against Ajax. He and Andreas Christensen either communicated woefully or not at all, leading them to both run for the same ball towards the same attacker at the top of the box. The crossbar saved a shot from the other attacker both neglected.

Similarly, against Crystal Palace he made several passes and roll-outs behind his centrebacks or to a centreback with the wrong body orientation to receive the ball and quickly play out from pressure. On Wednesday against Aston Villa, Arrizabalaga brought down a cross to snuff out a threat in the second half, but he waited so long to start his movement his teammates may have wondered if they were supposed to go for it.

Oliveira is talking about the actual footballing skills and intelligence, and more specifically the goalkeeper-specific skills and intelligence, that underlie the inanity of a “ball-playing goalkeeper.”

Ederson and Jan Oblak are not who they are because they are the most technically gifted (although Ederson has ball skills to make outfielders jealous), but because they know precisely when and how to apply those skills.

Modern goalkeepers don’t need to do Cruyff turns any more than old-school goalkeepers. If they can, great, but if they do it at the wrong time it would be better if they never heard of it. Goalkeepers need to know when and how to come out to claim a cross; how to read both the on-rushing attackers and their retreating defenders, and then to make the right decision with and without the ability to communicate with their teammates; and when to play the ball short, when to hoof it long and how to bail out their defenders rather than being the one who needs emergency assistance.

Hiring Hugo Oliveira will also serve a bit of an ulterior purpose for Chelsea: his presence will test Kepa Arrizabalaga’s willingness to learn and improve.

Describing what kind of goalkeepers get the most out of working with him, Oliveira said “We have intentions and they have the possibilities… [T]hey need to be passionate about the game and the training and make them believe that I know the path to improve their game. For me, it’s all about passion but with high-level methodology.”

Arrizabalaga certainly has the possibilities, but he needs someone like Hugo Oliveira to make him look within to see if he has that passion and willingness to buy in to a coach at his level. That could be the turning point in a young player’s career: does he take the same steps and travel a similar road as Jan Oblak and Ederson, or does he cruise along and travel a similar road as players whose names don’t come to mind so easily?

Chelsea have already invested a lot of money in their starting goalkeeper. Hugo Oliveira is a marginal, minimal, negligible additional cost, but could see to it that Chelsea get the full value of their transfer fee.

Hopefully after three clubs in two and a half years with Marco Silva, Oliveira will want to settle into an environment more like the one he left at Benfica: one with trophies, European football, talented young keepers and the prospect of completing multiple seasons without having to move again.

H/T to my colleague Barrett Rouen for tipping me off to Hugo Oliveira earlier this week. Read his latest here.