€47.3m youngster is huge BlueCo success story – he’s so good there are big questions for next season

€47.3m youngster is huge BlueCo success story – he’s so good there are big questions for next season

Mike Penders is a BlueCo success story, and will likely step up and compete for the Chelsea first team next year.

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Part of what’s been so frustrating about Chelsea’s “buy low, sell high” strategy since BlueCo took over has been simply how badly chosen the youngsters brought in have been.

They haven’t been well developed, by and large, but more fundamentally some of them don’t even look to have the ceiling necessary to reach that.

An exception to that is goalkeeper Mike Penders. The giant Belgian has consistently looked really promising, and his step up this season to Strasbourg has had him tested at a higher level. He will feature in the Conference League semi final tonight.

Penders development leaves big questions for Blues

The CIES football observatory have just dropped a study on under 23 goalkeepers worldwide, with Penders coming out top of the pile in terms of estimated value.

His €47.3m valuation is pretty massive, and he’s significantly younger than those just behind him in the list. His development has been so good that there are genuine questions about next season – is he already ready to compete at Chelsea? Or is that a risk we don’t need to take?