Robert Sanchez is a regular scapegoat for this Chelsea team, and he did himself no favours yesterday with another showing that painfully looked like it might have cost us a point – or at least contributed to it.
On 5Live, former Chelsea goalkeeper Asmir Begovic looked at Sanchez’s positioning and decision to not come out faster to claim a cross which Curtis Jones ended up scoring from, giving Liverpool the lead they held onto until full time.
“The challenge in the first-half has possibly played on his mind. He was close to giving away a penalty so maybe he was playing it a little bit safe,” Begovic speculated, referring to a first half clattering of Jones.
“But it was just a really difficult ball by Mohamed Salah to deal with. It put Sanchez in a really difficult position. As a goalkeeper, I always think that if you are not sure whether to come out you should stay on your line and make yourself big.”
Sanchez can’t get benefit of the doubt – but gets his manager’s backing
It’s always tough for us to criticise goalkeepers in terms of specific actions as it’s such a particular role with rules and techniques that the layman doesn’t always understand. But in this case we’ve got a former pro backing up exactly what we saw – Jones’s deep run able to beat both the offside trap and the keeper, in part thanks to Sanchez’ hesitance to be on the front foot and get out and claim the high ball, which is usually his strong point.
After a shaky game in terms of kicking and the earlier penalty he almost gave away, it sadly goes down as another bad game for the Spaniard, despite how much his manager came out to defend him.
