Chelsea: Newly signed goalkeeper Edouard Mendy will excel
Chelsea’s newest goalkeeper addition, Edouard Mendy, has shown some promise early on, expect him to excel in west London.
The signing of keeper Edouard Mendy to a five-year contract as a Chelsea goalkeeper and his almost immediate insertion into the team was very good news for fans all over the world. Mendy is going to be an upgrade on Chelsea’s two current goalkeepers, without a doubt. Mendy is a statuesque keeper, standing at 6-foot-6 (197 centimeters) tall; which is an excellent height for a keeper. He also has tremendous length and his reach will be a great asset to the club in every game.
While this observer had thought that a great longer-term move might be for Milan’s precocious 21-year-old Gianluigi Donnarumma, the signing of Mendy is look upon here as an excellent one nonetheless. Mendy was quickly installed into the starting line-up at Tottenham and while he didn’t stop any penalty kicks in the loss, he demonstrated why he’ll be an asset to the Blues from here on in. Despite not making any saves against Crystal Palace, Mendy conducted his back line with authority en route to a clean sheet against the Eagles. The Blues need his huge frame and talents every game now.
Thankfully, the club didn’t worry about his “acclimation” to the team and tactics. A keeper who can just stop shots and interrupt crosses does the most important jobs—the rest will follow. Mendy adds tangible qualities that neither Willy Caballero nor Kepa Arrizabalaga can bring to the table and those are his height and length. An old saying says that you can’t teach height or size. It’s on target, you can’t, and Mendy has them in abundance.
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Having a very tall keeper with long arms is a tremendous asset. Arrizabalaga can’t contribute that to the club; neither can Caballero. Mendy does and because of that and his ability to “jump out of the building” as they say, he will be a major asset to the Blues if they actually feel they can mount a title challenge this season. Without a new keeper, that was a dream that frankly was not going to materialize. Now, despite a less than stellar and disappointing start to the season, who knows, anything may be possible.
Mendy demonstrates a super ability to get to the corners and stop shots that have been goals of late against Chelsea more times than not. No one should have any doubts about Mendy’s ability to challenge set pieces and roam sky-high to snag corners from waiting attackers before they have any chance to send them towards goal. Any jitters from Mendy in his first start for the Blues were certainly to be expected. Yet, his performance against Tottenham was solid, despite the lack of penalty saves.
Mendy clearly demonstrated against Spurs and Palace that he has great ability to stop shots with his legs, go skyward to intercept crosses and come off his goal line to make an early intervention to snuff out a chance. Watching his highlights at Rennes also makes those talents abundantly clear.
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It’s certainly already evident, even at this early point, Chelsea may have made a superlative purchase in bringing Mendy to the club and in not hesitating to throw him right into the first team against a strong Spurs team. While the result was less than satisfactory, the signals were sterling silver. Mendy will be a huge improvement at the shot stopping position and that’s just fine with Blues fans all over globe for sure.