After selling Edouard Mendy to Al-Ahli SFC, a journalist claims that Chelsea could sign a £30 million player from a Premier League opponent to replace him. According to Andy Naylor of The Athletic, the club is considering signing Robert Sanchez as Mendy’s successor.
The 25-year-old made 90 appearances across all competitions for Brighton & Hove Albion, giving up 102 goals while keeping 29 clean sheets. He joined the club in 2013 from Levante. However, he faces an unclear future at Amex Stadium.
In the first half of the previous season, Sanchez was a regular, starting 22 of the 22 Premier League games between August and February until losing his spot due to bad play. For the final three months of the season, the Spanish international was relegated to the bench since Jason Steele was favored in goal.
Naylor claims that his relationship with manager Roberto De Zerbi has soured as a result of his refusal to sit on the bench after being dropped, thus he may be allowed to leave. Sanchez won’t break the bank since Brighton will accept a £30 million offer, as David Kent of Mail Online reported earlier in July.
All depends on whether Chelsea would pay that much for a second-choice goalkeeper, however, as Kepa Arrizabalaga isn’t going anywhere. The 28-year-old was a regular last season, hence why Mendy was sold, so Sanchez would have to be content with a subsidiary role.
The Spaniard was 17th in the Premier League for saves (64.8% of shots on target faced) and kept the same amount of clean sheets (6) in 23 games that Steele did in 15 (6), so his stock has gone down somewhat.
Sanchez was previously regarded as one of the best stoppers in the league, but even Brighton are happy to let him go after signing Bart Verbruggen from Anderlecht.
It just remains to be seen whether Sanchez would willingly sit on the bench at Stamford Bridge after growing frustrated with a lack of playing time at Brighton. He’s surely too young and too useful to sit on the bench every week.
