A tale of 4 Goalkeepers, no elite striker & bad squad building
Our squad building at each end of the pitch has been poor
So Chelsea have made a bid of 20m Euros (£16.8m) for Filip Jorgensen, a goalkeeper from Villerreal. Now this might be a good signing, it might not be. I will be giving him my full backing if he joins us, as always.
But if we do sign him, he'd be the third goalkeeper we've signed for the first team in less than 12 months, and fourth overall.
The roll call for GK’s would be:
Robert Sanchez £25m
Djorde Petrovic £14m
Filip Jorgensen £16-20m
Gabriel Slolnina £12m.
That's a grand total of £71m spent on goalkeepers, the exact same as we spent on Kepa Arrizabalaga, and yet we still don't have a clear, elite number one, something which all top teams need.
Even more ridiculous is Djorde Petrovic, who was number one for much of last season and showed promise, is apparently up for sale.
Meanwhile at the top end of the pitch, we're well into the 5th window of this ownership and we've STILL not signed an elite striker, or at least a proven PL striker who can deliver. We’ve signed Nicolas Jackson, who has shown great potential, and some other young strikers, such as 18 year old Marc Guiu from Barcelona, who showed promise against Wrexham, and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang who was past his best, but no proven striker in their prime. Its utter madness.
With respect, there’s no excuse for this. All of the above is sheer incompetence, and poor team building. The people in charge of this, our sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart are the ones responsible. They sign off on all these decisions, they are building the squad, and sure as hell they’ll take credit for successes. To be this far into a rebuild and still not have solved these two key positions, is simply poor performance, poor team building, and incompetence of the highest order. This is not how an elite football club with aspirations of trophies and Champions League football operates.
The £71m we've spent on keepers could easily have got us Mike Maignan, a truly elite keeper, or even someone like Jordan Pickford, arguably one of the best keepers at the Euros and one of the best in the PL performance wise last season, proven and a leader - and a young talent like Petrovic too. We all know the project is mainly with young talent, and I know this is a radical idea to some people at our club, but it IS OK to sign a few proven players in key positions. And we're failing to fill positions at the two ends of the pitch, where it really matters. This is the BASICS of squad building but something our sporting directors seem not to understand.
Some of our signings in the last 18 months have been excellent - Caicedo, Palmer, Lavia (who will come good IMO), Nkunku, Jackson, Gusto, Paez, Estevao for example, and I and others are happy to give the sporting directors massive credit for that. They’ve done a good job rebuilding the midfield, and our defence in many ways.
But you can't expect praise when you do well, then not be criticised when it goes wrong. These two positions, you could argue, are becoming an issue which is holding us back from getting where we need to be as a club, and many fans are tired of it.
There’s still time left in this window for the striker situation to be resolved, and I understand they want to get Romelu Lukaku and Armando Broja out the door before signing a striker. But to get even this far into the project and not have sorted these positions is absurd.
I know money is limited this summer, but surely we can find smart signings with proven quality at both ends of the pitch. It certainly shouldn't be as difficult as our sporting directors are currently making it look.
The Score
Goalkeeper is a hard position to get right as well though. Onana was THE player to sign last year and was then awful at United, they don't always work out even at the top end.
Thanks as always, The Score for your clear and well written articles. Not that it’s particularly relevant but I believe this is the fourth window in the plan. I’m also of the opinion that sometimes plans need adapting and if a fifth and sixth window is required then so be it.
The goalkeeping issue is one of the confuses many of us and is probably the one position where the sporting directors need to rely on other parties.
We also need to look at the circumstances when certain players were purchased. Acknowledging there was no long-term plan in place due to the ownership change. We came to our situation when we had two goalkeepers that were both surplus to requirements, Mendy & Kepa.
I’m not saying that all the purchases in this position have been good but there are other aspects that need to be considered.
As to whether or not another new goalkeeper will end up being the one we want certainly willing to give this approach a chance as I don’t want us to spend another £70 million on some of us not fit for purpose. What is important? Is that any goalkeeper now purchased is ticked off as having the potential to play Enzo requirement and style.
Thank you again for your insight, he is hoping they sell the right goalkeeper and not Petrovic