How Edouard Mendy Compares Statistically to His Chelsea Teammates

Slowly but surely, Frank Lampard is moulding Chelsea into the attacking, free-flowing flair side he would like them to be.

Splashing hefty amounts of cash in the summer, Lampard has overseen the arrivals of Timo Werner, Kai Havertz, Hakim Ziyech and Ben Chiwell among others in an attempt to not only challenge for more titles, but also to overhaul the club's footballing philosophy.

That said, unless you've been living under a football deprived rock, or just haven't been paying particularly close attention to Chelsea, you'll know that the club have been struggling in the goalkeeping department since Thibaut Courtois departed for Real Madrid in 2018.

In Kepa Arrizabalaga, signed for £71.6m - a world record fee for a goalkeeper - Chelsea hoped they had a long-term keeper (literally) on their hands, but things have unfortunately gone a bit pear-shaped for the Spaniard.

In and out of the team and unable to save anything that comes his way, Kepa has been replaced by the gargantuan figure of Edouard Mendy, a £22m summer signing from Rennes. Standing at 6'6 tall, the 28-year-old is a late bloomer at the highest level, but has already shown himself to be an imposing and agile figure in goal, impressing in his first half dozen appearances for Chelsea.

But we at 90min thought you shouldn't just take our word for it, you should get some hard statistical evidence to support why Mendy is so much better than Kepa and Willy Caballero, the other goalkeeping calamity-waiting-to-happen on the club's books.

We've even got some stats for the legendary Petr Cech to compare to, who you might recall has been included in Chelsea's 25-man Premier League squad despite being the club's technical/performance advisor, as well as being, officially, retired.

Let's dive in, with a bit of help from our pals at FBRef.

Save Percentage

One thing that has stood out like a sore thumb throughout Kepa's tenure in Chelsea's goal is his dreadfully low save percentage.

During the 2019/20 season, Kepa saved just 54.5% of the shots - significantly down from 67.5% in his debut campaign - that came his way, with only Aston Villa's Orjan Nyland (the guy who literally carried the ball into his goal but got away with it because HawkEye had a bit of a moment) faring worse of the goalkeepers who played a minimum of five Premier League games.

With Kepa 27th on that particular list, Chelsea probably held out some hope that Caballero would be a marked improvement. He wasn't, sadly, placing just a spot higher than Kepa, with an equally abysmal save percentage of 56.3% from the five games he appeared in.

Over in France, Mendy kept out 78.4% of the shots he faced in Ligue 1 for Rennes, which would have placed him third in the Premier League last season.

Now he's at Stamford Bridge, Mendy has upped that number to 100% in the Premier League - he has three clean sheets out of three - and he also has two Champions League shutouts to his name. In fact, the only time he's conceded in six games was to Erik Lamela in the Carabao Cup, a game the Blues went on to lose on penalties.

It's a small sample size, yes, but one that gives Mendy an overall save percentage of 91.6%, while Kepa's numbers again stand at a dreadful 57.1% from the three Premier League games he has played. Caballero, meanwhile, played in the 3-3 draw at West Brom and failed to make a single save. We won't spell out what that means for his save percentage...

To put things into perspective even more, Cech's best ever season for Chelsea came during the 2006/07 campaign - when he averaged a save percentage of 88.5%, despite making just 28 appearances because of a fractured skull sustained in a collision against Reading in October 2006.

All of the above points to one thing, at least for now - Mendy sure knows how to stop the ball.

Clean Sheets

Every goalkeeper's bread and butter is keeping a clean sheet.

It doesn't matter if you're 4-0 up heading into the final few minutes, shutting the opposition out is the ultimate aim for any team worth their salt. Every goalkeeper relies on their defence to help do that, but it's no coincidence that the most highly regarded keepers in the game are the ones who can rack up clean sheet after clean sheet.

At the time of writing, Kepa has kept 22 clean sheets in 72 Premier League appearances (30.5%) - though for arguments sake, we'll narrow that down to his first season figure of 14. That came from 36 appearances, giving him a shutout percentage of 38.8%.

As soon as Petr Cech and our technical team identified Edouard as the most suitable goalkeeper to complement our existing group, there was only one player we wanted to bring in.Marina Granovskaia, Chelsea director

Caballero comes in at a slightly lower figure, but that's understandable given his 11 Premier League appearances for the club have been spread over four seasons. In any event, that gives the Argentine a clean sheet percentage of 27%.

Mendy's, as we previously mentioned, stands at 100% from his three Premier League appearances, but he's also kept five clean sheets in a row if you include his Champions League exploits. Kepa, in his 98 games in all competitions, has never kept more than three clean sheets in a row in all competitions.

Undoubtedly, Mendy's going to concede goals eventually, we all know that.

But what we can point to is the Senegalese's record in his first season at Rennes and final campaign at Reims, where he kept 23 clean sheets in 62 appearances (37%) - one more than Kepa in ten fewer appearances. Interestingly, he averaged 37% in both the 2018/19 and 2019/20 season, indicating he's a far more consistent performer.

As far as Cech goes, he kept an insane 42 clean sheets in his first 69 appearances, when Mourinho-ball really was at its peak. That's a frankly ridiculous shutout percentage of 61%, while his first season at the Bridge garnered a whopping 68.5% clean sheets.

Mendy is unlikely to emulate those numbers, but he's the closest thing Chelsea have got (Thibaut Courtois, incidentally, also averaged 37.5% in his first season at the club and he turned out alright) right now. Undisputedly, he's the club's number one - rightly so - and although he has plenty to get his teeth stuck into over the coming months, there's a calming reassurance and commanding presence that he brings to Lampard's side.

For that reason alone, he could be Chelsea's most important signing of the season.