Pep Chavarria to Chelsea
Xabi Alonso_v4
Chelsea New Signing calls are already growing loud. Three goals away at Fulham on Monday, and yet Chelsea nearly blew it. A 3-2 win in Xabi Alonso’s first game in charge should have felt comfortable, but Robert Sanchez turned it into a near-disaster. Two clangers. Two goals gifted. Joao Pedro, Morgan Rogers and Cole Palmer were brilliant going forward, but the goalkeeper handed Fulham a foothold they had no right to.
Former Chelsea defender Frank Lebouef told ESPN FC that Sanchez has been a known quantity for too long, and that quality simply isn’t good enough for a club chasing titles. Emmanuel Petit went further, telling Oddschecker that Aston Villa’s Emi Martinez, reportedly available at around £10 million, could be the answer, even as a short-term fix.
‘It’s hard to be a goalkeeper because you have nobody behind you, but we know Sanchez,’ former Chelsea defender Frank Leboeuf told ESPNFC. ‘We have known him for a while and know that he can make mistakes.
‘But when you play for a club like Chelsea, and you see what they can do offensively, they were perfect: the three guys up front scoring three goals away from home that’s great, but you cannot waste that by making silly mistakes.
‘There is an issue, and Xabi Alonso has to find someone else really quickly. It’s been an issue for a while; we don’t want to see that any more.
‘All due respect to Sanchez, we tried; it doesn’t work, and when it’s important, he’s not there to save the club, so we have to find another one.’
And Petit has suggested that a move for Martinez could prove a shrewd acquisition, even if he only offers a short-term solution to a long-standing problem.
‘Only £10 million? he remarked when speaking to Oddschecker about Martinez’s potential value.
‘Well, maybe some people ask me about Martinez, and I always think about the national team and his antics during the World Cup. ‘We have a long history with Martinez. But I have to be honest, I like the goalkeeper. Even when he tries to get into opponents’ minds and exhibits bad behaviour on the pitch, he has the personality and leadership needed.
‘At Chelsea, that could be interesting – his anger, his ambition. He’s not scared of talking to the players and telling them what he thinks.
‘It would have been great to see that leadership alongside Fernandez in the middle of the park. I have no idea if he is going to leave, but definitely, if Chelsea needs to change their goalkeeper, Martinez could be an option.’
Chelsea New Signing: Why Sanchez cannot work under Alonso
The numbers from 2025-26 look reasonable on paper: 35 Premier League starts, 9 clean sheets, and a FIFA Club World Cup Golden Glove. But statistics can hide a multitude of flaws, and Sanchez’s flaws are structural, not just a run of bad form. His launch accuracy dropped below 38% when pressed last season. Against Fulham, he parried a shot carrying an expected goals on target value of just 0.05 directly into his own net. That’s not a mistake. That’s a mechanical failure.
Alonso demands his goalkeeper function as a composed eleventh outfield player, distributing with authority and reading space ahead of a high defensive line. Sanchez freezes under a press. His passing angles narrow, his kicking shape degrades, and Chelsea’s entire defensive structure collapses as centre-backs drop deep to compensate. He also ranks at the bottom of European goalkeepers for cross-stop percentages. Once the first error arrives, his confidence evaporates completely, and that cascading effect makes every player around him anxious.