Xabi Alonso has praised Mike Penders for overcoming his mistake against Tottenham Hotspur as he kept a clean sheet for Chelsea in their 2-0 Premier League victory over Manchester United at Stamford Bridge on Saturday. The young Belgian faced 12 shots but did not concede.
Penders has been filling in for injured Emiliano Martínez and had an embarrassing first Premier League start last weekend when he came on for a corner and punched it into his own net in Chelsea’s home loss to Tottenham. He had made his league debut a week earlier at Everton, coming on when Martínez was stretchered off, and kept a clean sheet there.
However, he put in a strong performance midweek against Liverpool at Anfield, including a save in the shootout, as Chelsea were knocked out of the Carabao Cup on penalties. He has now had his best game of the season, so far. In the second minute of added time, Penders made a crucial save, getting his fingertips to Bryan Mbeumo’s powerful volley and pushing it onto the crossbar.
Asked about Penders’ improvement, Alonso said:
“Not just today, but he was solid against Liverpool. Today, he has shown a good level – another clean sheet.”
The clean sheet was an important one for the Blues, who had been struggling with their defence throughout the early stages of the season. The win sees them move up to fourth in the table, and they travel to Sunderland next on the 8th of November.
Alonso’s Warnings About Clean Sheets
Throughout Alonso’s first few months in charge, he has highlighted how poor the defence has been. The Blues conceded 15 goals in their first eight games of the league, and before Saturday, they had a goal difference of +2.
After beating Everton 2-0 earlier in October and recording their first clean sheet in nine months, Alonso refused to get too excited. He said:
“We need to keep working. It’s just one game. One would be very poor – we need to get many more clean sheets. This feels good and now we need to keep going this way. We need to know wherever we go, we can win in a professional way.”
He also set a target that day:
“It will be key when we are able to manage 10 clean sheets. The first one feels good and it was needed, but now the goal is to be consistent and to keep doing that.”