Enzo Maresca has struggled to find his preferred goalkeeper this season (Image: Getty)
It’s a sign of poor transfer strategy when a club has eight goalkeepers on their books, but still can’t settle on a first-choice pick. That’s exactly the case at right now, with once again rolling the goalkeeper dice for this weekend’s clash against Leicester City.
It looked as if Filip Jorgensen had assumed the position of No.1 for ’s Premier League matches, having started four league outings in a row throughout February. The Blues were treated to a week off last weekend following their FA Cup exit, with returning to action in midweek away to Copenhagen in the Conference League.
Robert Sanchez – who joined last season for £25million – had been preferred for the outing in the Danish capital, but considering he’d started last month’s FA Cup match against Brighton, it wasn’t too much of a shock to see him in the XI. The same couldn’t be said about his inclusion in Sunday’s starting line-up against Leicester.
Sanchez, of course, began the season as ’s No.1, but following a string of individual errors after the turn of the year was parachuted out of the team to make way for Jorgensen. Fast forward a month later and Maresca has already gone back on his decision.
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Robert Sanchez has returned to the Chelsea XI in recent matches (Image: Getty)
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It’s quite the predicament find themselves in, not least because the west Londoners are hardly starved of options. After penning a deal in the summer transfer window, Mike Penders became the eighth goalkeeper contracted to the club, which makes the fact they haven’t found a suitable No.1 all the more impressive.
It’s something former Premier League goalkeeper Tim Howard picked up on in the build-up to Sunday’s clash, telling NBC: “It’s a disaster. Players see right through that. It happened to me at Man United, Sir Alex Ferguson dropped me to bring Roy Carroll in. I made a mistake, Roy then made a mistake, he brought me back in. It flip-flopped for the rest of the season.
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“Basically what happened every time I stepped across the line, it was ‘just don’t make a mistake’. I didn’t care if the team wins, by the way, do you know what happens? You make more mistakes doing that?”
He added: “They need another goalkeeper. Both of these goalkeepers aren’t good enough to compete at this level.”
return to action on Thursday night for the second leg of their Conference League tie against Copenhagen. They boast a 2-1 lead after the first leg and will play either Molde or Legia Warsaw if they progress.