Having spent far too much of 2024 watching his team-mates play football, Kepa Arrizabalaga can console himself with the fact that Saturday’s shift to the sidelines when Bournemouth host Chelsea will only be a temporary frustration.
Premier League rules mean Arrizabalaga cannot face his parent club at the Vitality Stadium but, provided he is fit, he will be back in the Bournemouth team when they travel to Anfield to take on Liverpool the following weekend.
Andoni Iraola made very clear just how important he considers his compatriot to be in his bigger plans during the discussions about the season-long loan deal that was completed on the penultimate day of the summer window.
The familiarity between the two stretches back to the mid-2010s when Iraola was approaching the end of a 12-year stint with Athletic Bilbao and Arrizabalaga was making a name for himself in the club’s reserve side. But they did not know each other well and relationships were not the determining factor here; Arrizabalaga was won over by the personal effort Iraola made to convince him that Bournemouth was the right place to kickstart a career that had stalled.
Arrizabalaga had not been flush with options.
Talks with Saudi Pro League club Al Ittihad in July did not develop into a viable deal and Real Madrid only wanted to bring him back to Spain if Andriy Lunin — who displaced him at Santiago Bernabeu last season during the injury absence of Thibaut Courtois — moved on.
Bournemouth had expended significant time and energy exploring the possibility of bringing in Giorgi Mamardashvili on loan from Liverpool but, when that came to nothing, Iraola was an enthusiastic advocate of securing Arrizabalaga. Negotiating with Chelsea over high-earning players they want to offload was a familiar challenge for the club’s sporting director, Tiago Pinto, who, in his previous role at Roma, had agreed the loan deal to bring Romelu Lukaku to Stadio Olimpico.
In the end, Bournemouth were not the only party to make an extra effort to get the Arrizabalaga deal over the line.
Arrizabalaga signed a new contract with Chelsea, extending his commitment to the club from 2025 to 2026 but significantly reducing his salary, which will be covered by Bournemouth for the duration of the loan. There is also a £5million release clause that can become active if other conditions in the deal are fulfilled and at a number that is not expected to provide an obstacle to a permanent transfer to the club of his choice next summer.
The agreement could benefit everyone.
Bournemouth have the starting goalkeeper their coach wanted on suitable financial terms. Arrizabalaga has left money on the table to secure regular Premier League football but retains a strong influence over his destiny next summer when his market may be wider. Chelsea have relieved themselves of a hefty salary for 2024-25 and have a good chance of banking a transfer fee for a player who could have left on a free at the end of the season.
The biggest winner of all may end up being Arrizabalaga, a talented goalkeeper saddled with crippling expectations that accompanied his £71.6million ($93.7m) move from Athletic to Chelsea in August 2018 who, startlingly, has played just 53.2 per cent of the available league minutes in the six seasons since despite suffering relatively few injuries.
Life at elite clubs is unforgiving. Arrizabalaga exhibited admirable resilience to win back the starting spot he had lost to Edouard Mendy at Chelsea amid a confidence crisis, only for the club’s new sporting leadership to move on from both goalkeepers in the summer of 2023. Injury gave Lunin the chance to usurp him for the business end of Real Madrid’s 2023-24 campaign, but he still offered the Ukraine international valuable advice on some of Manchester City’s penalty takers during a Champions League quarter-final shootout victory at the Etihad Stadium.
After that match, Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti and his son (and first assistant) Davide made a point of singling out Arrizabalaga’s subtle, unselfish contribution from the sidelines and he was a popular dressing-room figure.
There were reminders in his Bournemouth debut against Everton just before the September international break that Arrizabalaga has plenty to offer on the pitch, too, as he made impressive reaction saves in the first half to deny Iliman Ndiaye and Seamus Coleman and keep his team close enough to pull off the latest winning comeback from two goals down in Premier League history.
At 29, Arrizabalaga could have many more years left as a starting goalkeeper in a top European league. If this season goes well, there may be one more significant club willing to make a long-term investment in him and perhaps even a path back into the Spain squad after a summer spent watching his friends and countrymen win Euro 2024.
Watching will be Arrizabalaga’s brief against Chelsea on Saturday, too, but there will be no need to get comfortable on the sidelines for Bournemouth.
(Top photo: James Gill – Danehouse/Getty Images)
