Marcus Bettinelli delighted with first season at Chelsea | OneFootball

Former Fulham goalkeeper Marcus Bettinelli is enjoying his first season with Chelsea.

Bettinelli currently acts as third choice behind Edouard Mendy and Kepa Arrizabalaga.

"It's been great," he told the club's website. "Edou and Kepa are two top-class goalkeepers. I knew that before I arrived but when you work with them every day, you see the effort and commitment that they both put in and you realise then just how good they are.

"We've got a good goalie group with Hilario and James Russell [the goalkeeping coaches], who are top people to work with. They push you every day and they've put a lot of time and effort into improving me over the last five months.

"Of course, I always knew what my role would be but Hilario made it clear when I signed that he wants me to improve and they've certainly helped me do that."

Playing games is often considered the default way to develop through experience and Bettinelli certainly did that last term, with 41 appearances in the Championship on loan at Middlesbrough. Yet there is also something to be said from learning alongside the best and he has seen a different side to the art of goalkeeping during his five months at Cobham.

"Hilario is unbelievable at cutting clips from training and showing you where you've improved ever so slightly in goalkeeping terms, stuff that the outfielders or people watching might not see,' he explained. 'He goes into real detail; him and James are brilliant at that.

"They work and work on it. It's not a case of if something doesn't work the first time then we give up and try something else. We work hard and we stick to our guns. I've learnt a lot.

"I've approached goalkeeping in a completely different way to what I have done in the past because of their philosophy so that's been great to try new things. At the start, I found it very tough because it was completely different but now I would say I'm very used to it and understand what's coming."