It’s Monday, Chelsea have lost, and their goalkeeper is getting the blame.
It’s a story that’s been repeated a too many times in the last few years, and it needs a solution, ASAP. Having a bad goalkeeper wasn’t such an issue when we were a bad overall team. Now the rest of the puzzle is coming together, it becomes more of an issue.
The sporting directors have made a rod for their own back here by signing so many keepers already. They’ve bought Gabriel Slonina, Djordje Petrovic Mike Penders, Filip Jorgensen and Robert Sanchez, all in the space of a year. None of them really look like they’ll ever be world class – and certainly none of them are good enough right now. Penders is more of an unknown – but he’s currently not even getting in the Genk first team, which isn’t promising if we want an immediate solution.
What’s even more frustrating is that those same sporting directors let Giorgi Mamardashvili, who we had been linked to heavily and who has shown himself to be a really top class keeper, go to Liverpool. That means the Reds now have 3 goalkeepers (Alisson, Kelleher and Mamardashvili) who are better than our best goalkeeper from our group of 5. They are hitting winners every time they buy, we are swinging and missing.
Sanchez public backing can only go so far
Enzo Maresca has come out publicly to back Sanchez after a poor game, but even that in itself is telling. If a manager has to come out and defend you multiple times as a goalkeeper, the end is probably nigh.
Hopefully with the rest of the squad looking deep and talented and young, we can really focus on getting the next keeper right. 6th time lucky, guys!
The question is how many points we’re going to miss out on between now and then.