Chelsea: Andre Onana would be no more of a gamble than Kai Havertz

Chelsea needs a goalkeeper but they are hesitant about Andre Onana. He would be no more of a gamble than a potential Kai Havertz transfer.

Chelsea and head coach Frank Lampard have been very public in their pursuit of Bayer Leverkusen wonderkid, Kai Havertz, but there doesn’t seem to be as tenacious a pursuit of Ajax’s Andre Onana. Onana is believed to be a big risk and not Havertz, but Havertz is as big of a risk.

Chelsea has needed a player of Havertz’s profile this season without a doubt. A player who can unlock tight defenses, make intelligent runs against different types of opponents, as well as finish chances. The Blues have let too many draws stay as draws and a player like Havertz will change many of such results. Havertz has shown in the Bundesliga that he can play at the top level, though he has not shown that in the Premier League yet. This also applies to Onana.

It is true that the level of football played in the Eredivisie is not at the same level as that of the Premier League. However, no one can say for sure what keepers would do well or flop when they step up to the Premier League. The Blues broke the world record for a goalkeeper in Kepa Arrizabalaga a month after Liverpool did it.

Liverpool though, is not regretting their decision. Far from it. Since signing Alisson Becker from AS Roma, they have won the UEFA Champions League, the Club World Cup, the UEFA Super Cup and the Premier League all in the space of two seasons. Arrizabalaga, meanwhile, is now rumored to be statistically the second worst goalkeeper in Premier League history. Chelsea’s most expensive player has also become their biggest disappointment. It is then understandable why the London club is hesitant to go all in on another goalkeeper.

Onana has been circulating the rumor mill and the rumors seemed to be gaining traction but in the London is Blue podcast, The Daily Telegraph’s Chelsea correspondent Matt Law, said the Blues are unlikely to go for him. Reason being that there are doubts as to whether Onana can make the step up to Premier League level as quickly as the club need him to. Lampard may also be trying to gather more information about Onana, so that they’re not caught off guard.

Being careful, however, should not stop Chelsea from taking action. Ninety percent of Chelsea’s transfers this window have come/are coming from other leagues, there is no guarantee that any of them would be a huge success, if at all. Signing a player from the Premier League is also not a guarantee that he’ll be a success.

Fernando Torres was a world beater at Liverpool, but for whatever reason he couldn’t match that level of efficiency in blue. According to Transfermarkt, Torres averaged 0.79 goals/assists in the Premier League for Liverpool across 102 appearances. When he made the switch to west London, he only average 0.39 goals/assists in the Premier League over 110 appearances. Yes, there were several factors at play, however, this shows that even getting a top performer from your league doesn’t guarantee that he would maintain the same level of consistency. Robin van Persie matched, and in fact improved his efficiency when he stepped up from Arsenal to Manchester United, increasing his average goals/assists contribution from 0.57 to 0.79.This shows that for every Van Persie there is a Torres.

Goalkeepers are very different from outfield players, and they develop differently too, but there are several pointers that point toward Onana being a good goalkeeper now and those same pointers indict Arrizabalaga. The goals conceded per game ratio is one that is often used to get a general idea of a goalkeeper’s prowess, though it significantly favors keepers in relatively dominant teams in their respective leagues. Chelsea was caught in an awkward situation at the time they triggered Arrizabalaga’s release clause. They were desperate.

It is generally thought that a goals conceded/games played ratio of less than one is good. For comparison Petr Cech, in the Premier League, had a ratio of 0.73 goals conceded/game across 333 Premier league appearances for Chelsea. Alisson’s ratio is 0.67 across 67 Premier League appearances for Liverpool, his Roma ratio was 0.76 across 37 Serie A appearances. Obviously the more appearances the closer to one the ratio would be, but overall it’s a good indicator of a goalkeeper’s performance. Onana’s ratio is 0.82 across 122 appearances in the Eredivisie for Ajax.

In comparison, Arrizabalaga’s ratio at Athletic Bilbao was 1.23 across 53 appearances. His Chelsea ratio is 1.25 across 69 appearances. Bilbao was not dominant in La Liga, but Chelsea was more possession oriented so it’s not a good look. Arrizabalaga has been fairly consistent in his shot-stopping, albeit negatively. These numbers show that the keeper the west London club paid for is the keeper they got. There were signs that Arrizabalaga is not a good shot-stopper, it was there for all to see, if anyone bothered to look. It is not as though the Spain international was good at Bilbao and then got bad in England.

The signs show that Onana is a decent shot-stopper, but why should Chelsea go after the Ajax key man? Ajax play a high line, like Chelsea, and Ajax were without their key defender, Matthijs De Ligt, meaning that their defense would have been considerably weaker than it was in past seasons after his move to Juventus. A high line means they would concede some high quality shots because many teams would have a lot of space to exploit. Chelsea’s style of play is similar to that, as far as the high line anyway. This should dispel worries that Onana’s numbers are good because he has a packed defense 12 meters in front of him at all/most times.

Ajax play on the front foot; they’re possession-oriented like Chelsea. Of course, the league Onana plays in is very different from the Premier League, but largely, a goalkeeper’s job is the same. If Chelsea cannot trust Onana’s league numbers, they should look at his Champions League performance. This season he has played six Champions League group games, keeping 3 clean sheets and conceding 6 goals with an 81 percent save percentage. However, of those six, five of them came against the Blues, the other one against Valencia.

The only other risk surrounding the Ajax star is the fact that no transfer is a guaranteed success and every transfer is at risk of being a flop, mainly because there are many factors that affect a player’s performance, but if the club were this hesitant on every transfer they would make no transfers because all transfers are at equal risk of flopping. This applies to high-profile, high-cost transfers like Havertz, as well as low-profile, low-cost transfers like Onana.