According to former English striker Darren Bent, Kepa Arrizabalaga could be the man to cost Frank Lampard his job at Chelsea.
Edouard Mendy’s injury saw Lampard put Arrizabalaga back between the sticks against Southampton last weekend, which backfired on him.
Another Kepa’s blunder helped the Saints walk away from Stamford Bridge with a 3-3 draw, inviting rage from disappointed Chelsea fans.
Mendy restored his place in the Blues’ starting XI against Sevilla in the Champions League on Tuesday, and the 28-year-old kept a clean sheet.
The former Rennes man, who arrived for £22million during the summer, has already done enough to convince Lampard to hand him a regular starting berth.
Indeed, the English manager has named Mendy his first-choice shot-stopper after witnessing Arrizabalaga commit a series of high-profile mistakes.
Those errors are what could end up costing Lampard his job, according to Darren Bent.
“I would pick anybody except Kepa,” he told talkSPORT. “I probably would go Petr Cech over Kepa, but then you think to yourself that he has no confidence already, it is gone, it is on the floor, he has got none.
“If you go and play Petr Cech over him as well, what happens then? But what else can you do?
“Every time he plays Kepa he makes a mistake, he costs us goals, and he costs us points.
“If you keep putting a goalkeeper out there and he keeps making mistakes, costing you points, by the way, you can’t keep putting him out there.
“He might cost Frank Lampard his job if he doesn’t win many games.”
Bent’s warning arrives amid growing speculations suggesting that Roman Abramovich thinks about replacing the club icon with Massimiliano Allegri.
Allegri is jobless since exiting Juventus and could become a real option for Chelsea if the team fails to improve under the current manager.
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