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.”