Petr Cech suggested €60m stopper long before Inter move

There isn’t much to report overall on the story of Chelsea’s chase for a new first choice goalkeeper, although Football.London’s piece today has one interesting snippet.

The Blues have made a major push for Mike Maignan and found that AC Milan aren’t willing to do business, so it looks like Andre Onana of Inter Milan will be our chosen man.

He’s had a great season and helped the Italians reach the Champions League final. But our interest goes back a lot further than that, according to this piece. Petr Cech, our former sporting director, was a big fan:

“Cech was understood to be a fan of Onana, who back then was playing for Dutch giants Ajax. However, in 2021, the Cameroonian goalkeeper was banned from football for 12 months for doping after mistakenly taking his wife’s medicine. Then in 2022, when he returned to action, he joined Inter Milan with Chelsea’s interest in the shot-stopper somewhat cooling.”

It’s always nice to get the blessing of one of the club’s greatest ever goalkeepers when you’re trying to secure a new one. Cech ended up suggesting Edouard Mendy instead, which worked well for a while but ultimately has led us here, to needing a new stopper once again.

Let’s hope that whoever we sign this summer, it ends up being a long term solution.