Is Mike Penders ready to become Chelsea’s starting goalkeeper?

Xabi Alonso has made it very clear that Chelsea will not be signing a No 1 goalkeeper in this summer’s transfer window.

“I’m very happy with Rob (Sanchez), Mike (Penders) and Teddy (Sharman-Lowe),” the club’s new manager said in a press conference ahead of their pre-season match against Milan in Jakarta, Indonesia, last Saturday.

“Mike is a young goalkeeper who (had) a great season at Strasbourg (on loan for 2025-26). Rob, he has played many years in the club; in Chelsea, as well as the Premier League, he has experience. So to have this security in goal is important.”

The message, echoed in recent weeks by Chelsea sources speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships, was clear: you Diogo Costa pushers, stand down.

Alonso’s team selections over the course of Chelsea’s five-game trip around Australia and East Asia have also created the expectation that Sanchez will begin his fourth season at Stamford Bridge as the starter ahead of Penders, who did not play a minute in last weekend’s double-header against Milan and Malaysian champions Johor Darul Ta’zim.

That stance will not satisfy the many Chelsea fans who have lobbied for some time to see an upgrade on the 28-year-old Spaniard, who has been benched on several occasions in the past three years and has failed to inspire much confidence among supporters, even in his better stretches of form.

Last season, Sanchez ranked eighth in the Premier League with 2.7 ‘goals prevented’ (defined by Opta as the number of goals that a goalkeeper was expected to concede as a proportion of the number of goals they actually conceded), but that relatively respectable level of performance has not translated into trust with many Chelsea followers.

Penders is positive by this metric too, ranking seventh in France’s Ligue 1 last season with 3.1 goals prevented. The previous season, his breakthrough campaign in Belgium’s top flight at Genk, yielded a total of 4.3.

Such statistics are more definitive over a much larger, multi-season sample size, but these numbers do at least give cause to believe that the 21-year-old could be a significantly better-than-average shot-stopper for Chelsea.

He already has the valuable endorsement of Christophe Lollichon, the club’s legendary former goalkeeping coach who worked with Petr Cech and Thibaut Courtois.

Lollichon saw Penders up close when his current employers, Dunkerque, faced Strasbourg in the French Cup last season and spoke to him afterwards.

Mike Penders impressed with his shot-stopping at Strasbourg last season (Sebastien Bozon/AFP via Getty Images)

“I saw a mature goalkeeper,” he said of the Belgian in an exclusive interview with The Athletic last month. “He has to improve with (the ball at) his feet, but at (his age), he’s very good. He has good positioning, he’s proactive and he wants to learn. I felt this attitude in our conversation. He asked me about the Premier League. We spoke for just 20 minutes but it was very interesting.

“This guy could be the next good one in Chelsea, because for a long time now the goalkeeper position is poor in Chelsea.”

Lollichon’s appraisal of Penders’ mindset was echoed by a Strasbourg source, who described the young Belgian as a hard worker, always eager to study video of his performances and ask the club’s coaches and analysts what he could do to improve, down to the finest technical details. That inner drive, coupled with his outgoing personality, made him well liked and respected.

Penders has just 78 senior professional league appearances to his name, however.

Cech had nearly double that figure when he arrived from French club Rennes as a 22-year-old in the summer of 2003. Courtois had been a league champion in Belgium and Spain, as well as a Champions League finalist, by the time Chelsea brought him back from three consecutive loan seasons at Atletico Madrid at that same age in 2014. So despite being only slightly older than Penders is now, both men were far more seasoned and polished.

None of the above means Penders is not ready to displace Sanchez sooner rather than later this season, but it does help to calibrate expectations.

“I think (competing for the No 1 spot) could be good for both of them,” says Matt Pyzdrowski, a former professional keeper and current coach who serves as goalkeeping analyst for The Athletic. “For Sanchez, it could light a fire under him that there’s a young guy who wants to learn, who’s very talented, and who will take his job if he doesn’t perform.”

Pyzdrowski likes what he saw from Penders at Strasbourg, particularly in adapting to a more expansive role in possession against a more testing level of opposition pressure.

“He’s always been a very modern goalkeeper,” he adds. “He loves playing very offensively in his position, both in the build-up and defensively. In build-up under Liam Rosenior at Strasbourg, he was playing like an inverted centre-back — very, very aggressive in his play, and he was very comfortable in that role.

“You could see his range of passing, specifically how he’s able to go, Ederson-esque, from defence to attack in a second and launch balls quite far up the field, but he’s comfortable with building out from the back as well.”

The graphic below maps Penders’ distribution in Ligue 1 last season.

His passing consisted largely of short balls out to central areas from open play, with the occasional longer hit from goal kicks when favourable circumstances presented themselves:

For the sake of comparison, below is the same breakdown for Sanchez in the Premier League last season.

It is important to note that goalkeeper distribution is always impacted by team style and tactical instructions, but the Spaniard went longer more frequently from goal kicks:

Penders’ 6ft 7in (200cm) stature and huge wingspan also make him a force to be reckoned with when high balls come into his penalty area, which should translate well to the modern, more set-piece-focused Premier League.

“You never know until they’re thrown into the deep end, they either sink or swim, but he has an incredible frame and really good timing,” Pyzdrowski says. “He reads the flight of the ball really well. It’ll be interesting to see how he handles having four or five guys surrounding him in the box, because that’s what was allowed in the Premier League last season.”

There are also some areas for Penders to continue to improve.

“He’s always been a good shot-stopper — the only reason I don’t say great is because there are a few things that he still needs to iron out,” Pyzdrowski says. “Specifically with his positioning. Sometimes he can get pulled a little bit too far towards his near post with wide shots and open up space towards the back post.

“Also, in one-v-one situations, he’s a very typical big goalkeeper in that he tries to use his frame, but he hasn’t really figured out how to control it yet. There are quite a lot of situations where he rushes out of his goal and then maybe the attacker chips him or places the shot around him. It would be better for him to be a bit more calm in his approach instead of just rushing out of his goal.

“He’s young, so this is not strange — it’s part of the development phase. If he can put the tools together, to be able to use that size with a bit more composure, he’ll be very tough to beat.”

Penders produced some hugely exciting flashes at Strasbourg. He also made some errors that would have been scrutinised far more harshly had he been playing for Chelsea. Player development is not an exact science and bringing him along at the right speed will be a delicate balancing act for Alonso, amplified by the pressure to keep piling up Premier League points.

At 6ft 7in, Penders commands his area effectively (Sebastien Bozon/AFP via Getty Images)

The good news is that Sanchez is already sounding a positive note about Penders’ arrival.

“I think it is great for him to come here,” he said in an interview with journalists including The Athletic last week. “It is great competition. He has massive potential. I think he is going to be a great goalkeeper in the future — massive.

“You need someone, another choice, to cover and push each other to elevate your level. If you do not have someone who is pushing you every day, you get lazy, and then the performance drops. I think it is always good to have one or two people pushing you every day.”

Alonso appears to be leaning towards playing Sanchez over Penders in goal when Chelsea begin their Premier League season away to west London neighbours Fulham next Monday, August 24, but Pyzdrowski is making no assumptions that the goalkeeping hierarchy will stay that way throughout the campaign.

“I would be surprised if Penders is the starter on day one, just because at his age you don’t want to rush and throw him to the wolves,” he says. “But if things don’t go well for Chelsea at the beginning of the season and Sanchez doesn’t perform, it opens the door.”