“Chelsea didn’t choose me…” – Teenage talent on potential summer moves | OneFootball

Chelsea’s goalkeeper situation has been the focus of the media stories around the club recently. Robert Sanchez’s struggles continued until it became impossible to keep playing him, and we saw his understudy, summer signing Filip Jorgensen step in for the game on Monday night.

All eyes will be on the teamsheet on Saturday and next weekend to see whether the Danish Swede keeps his place.

But all that chatter about the succession plan in goal has also led to another name being brought up a lot – Mike Penders. The Belgian was also signed in the summer, but has remained on loan with Genk.

He’s mainly been with their youth team, but in recent weeks has had more chances to step up to the main squad and has impressed. Asked whether he thought this would improve his chances of coming directly to Stamford Bridge in the summer, the giant stopper remained neutral:

“I don’t know. Chelsea didn’t choose me based on those few games in the first team. They had followed me intensively the whole season before at Jong Genk. So, you see how important the academy is, and why you have to take those matches seriously too,” Penders said in an interview with Humo in his home country.

Succession plan falling into place for Chelsea

Mike Penders after his debut for Genk.

The sense we get is that our sister club Strasbourg would be the natural next destination for Penders, if he’s rated as good enough already. He can play in a top 5 league and start to get the experience he needs.

Many fans would then rather see Djordje Petrovic (currently on loan at Strasbourg and looking good, and a player who earned a starting spot last year) returned to Chelsea to compete with Jorgensen and Sanchez.  But we can well imagine the sporting structure deciding to cash in on him instead.