Chelsea’s costly and poor goalkeeper decisions analysed – Talk Chelsea

As I said in my striker article today, the goalkeeper position is one of the main positions on the pitch that Chelsea have to absolutely get right.

So far, they have spent £66m on signing new goalkeepers (including the pending arrival of Filip Jorgensen), and they still haven’t got it right.

Maybe Jorgensen turns out to be that guy, but we do not have a standout number one from spending £66m, for me that is just a fact, but a really lame fact.

How can you not sort out the goalkeeper position of all positions to be naive with?

I have to hold my words a bit on Jorgensen because it would be unfair of me to really judge him having not watched enough of him to form that judgement. I will obviously be fully behind him and truly hope he succeeds as our club. I’m fully open minded on him and will not write him off before he’s even played for us.

But again, the facts are that this is a very young (for goalkeepers) and very inexperienced (in a top division) goalkeeper that we are once again putting our hope in. We heard all sorts of PR about the belief we had in Djordje Petrovic and how he was going to be the next best thing and had been scouted by the club since he was still playing in the Serbian league blah, blah, and blah, and I am sure we will soon be hearing similar stuff about Jorgensen. And now they apparently want to sell Petrovic after one season? Make it make sense. It’s shambolic, there’s no two ways about it.

Robert Sanchez was once again brain farting against Celtic on Saturday night, and there is no way anyone can convince me that he is a suitable Chelsea number one.

For what it’s worth, I liked some of what I’ve seen on Petrovic, but he too has a way to go before he is good enough to be Chelsea number one. He got the number one spot when Sanchez was injured and then kept it, that tells you a lot, but more about the faith our old coaching team had in Sanchez!

I’ve heard good things about Jorgensen from people who watch him play regularly but even these people say he is raw and he has had shaky moments even with the ball at his feet, which is apparently one of his strengths.

It sounds like he could be a top goalkeeper once he is fully developed – hmmmm, we’ve heard that before about the majority of our new signings, haven’t we? But yes, maybe he does prove to be a top goalkeeper and can nail down that number one spot, let’s hope that ends up being the case.

But the truth is that if you are demanding your team get top four then maybe you should provide it with some ready-made players for the here and now and not just raw and developing players, no?

I have strong overall opinions on Chelsea’s recruitment under Clearlake and have had many debates about it even with people at the club. But recently I’ve been determined to just judge it at the end of this season to see where we’re at from this 4-window plan and that is essentially what I will be doing. But that won’t stop me voicing concerns on any new signings or praising ones that I think are good (because I can do both – I know, that’s a shock in some fan spaces). And yes, we are ALL entitled to voice an opinion on a club we PAY a lot of money to support, whether positive OR negative.

But if we get to the end of the season and it’s still visibly failing, then that is when we need to see hands held up, heads rolling, and admitting of mistakes, just as I will do if my doubts are proven wrong. We can’t just keep sacking managers and believing that is the issue at that point, can we?

Anyone who says end of this season isn’t long enough to see if it fails or succeeds, then tell that to the owners who have said for the second season running that the team simply HAVE to get UCL football this season. They cannot afford to miss it again, it’s as simple as that – so build a team that doesn’t miss it, right? Have they done that? Time will tell.

I’m still fully prepared to wait and see if the squad build proves me wrong after this ‘4-window plan’. I truly hope it does.