4 Reasons Why Rio Ferdinand Is Right To Raise Concerns About Edouard Mendy’s Form

BT Sport pundit Rio Ferdinand has expressed concern about Chelsea goalkeeper Edouard Mendy’s recent performances

The Senegalese shot-stopper was involved in a controversial incident late on against West Ham at the weekend, when a goal for the Hammers was ruled out by VAR, and Ferdinand feels Mendy has been making too many errors recently:

“I think the biggest thing for Chelsea from this game [against West Ham] is Edouard Mendy is becoming far too involved in situations like this. Against Leeds, he was at fault for the first goal. This one as well. There’s been other occasions where he’s made mistakes and hasn’t been punished. They need to iron that out quick because he was brilliant last season, he was phenomenal.He needs to eradicate those mistakes from his game. You don’t want to be in the news as a goalkeeper. The less you talk about them the better they’re doing. At the moment he’s also in the news.”

Press the next page as we pinpoint four reasons why Ferdinand is right to be concerned about the keeper’s form.

1) He is not saving as many shots

On the very basic metric of save percentage, Mendy has regressed from last season. He is currently only saving 66.7% of shots on target in the Premier League, compared to last campaign when he saved 73.7%.

When you look into the numbers further, analysing how likely a keeper is to save a shot (using post-shot xG) and comparing it to the number Mendy has actually conceded, things are also not great. The 30-year-old has let in 1.9 more goals than the average goalkeeper so far this campaign. In his first season, he actually conceded 0.1 fewer than his post-shot xG. The number last campaign was -0.4 suggesting he is progressively making fewer top drawer saves.

2) Mendy is not coming for crosses

One of the more startling stats from Mendy’s first six league games is his reluctance to come for crosses. He has only stopped 2.4% of deliveries into the penalty area so far this season.

That is a stark contrast to his first and second campaigns at Stamford Bridge when he averaged between 6.3% and 7.8%. For some reason, he seems to be more hesitant about coming off his line.

3) His kicking from his hands is getting worse

Keepers have very high pass completion stats because they usually look to offload the ball to the nearest defender at goal kicks and most other situations. Starting counter-attacks by launching the ball from their hands is, though, an important trait to have.

In this area, Mendy seems to have regressed. During his first season with the Blues, 47.5% of balls launched reached a teammate. That dropped very slightly to 46% last campaign, but the figure has now gone down to 39.6%.

4) Errors leading to shots have increased

A sign of a good goalkeeper is that when they parry a shot or make a clearance, it doesn’t usually lead to a follow-up attempt on goal from an opponent. Errors do, though, happen, and it appears that Mendy is increasingly prone to mistakes.

The Senegalese international averaged just 0.03 errors leading to shots per 90 in his first season at Chelsea. That has gone up to 0.17 per 90 so far this campaign.

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