"Sometimes,
things between a player, a club and a manager don't work, that's football,"
says Chelsea's new No 1 Robert Sanchez.
The rise, fall and rise again of one of the Premier League's most
sought-after young goalkeepers has been fairly remarkable over the past 12
months.
Not so long ago Sanchez was talked about as one of the top-flight's rising
stars, a giant of a goalkeeper with an excellent command of his box, a
strong shot stopper and comfortable with the ball at his feet. The all-round
modern goalkeeper.
But a poor spell at the Amex last season, tied in closely with the
ultra-prescriptive style of incoming manager Roberto De Zerbi, brought
everything tumbling down. Memories are short in football and within months,
after losing his place to Jason Steele in March, the 25-year-old's stock had
collapsed.
The £25m offer Brighton accepted from Chelsea in August would have never
been countenanced a year earlier. Bayern Munich were said to be stunned by
the price tag and also sounded out a move.
Now thrust back into the spotlight under Mauricio Pochettino and surrounded
by £1bn worth of players, it has given Sanchez a chance to rebuild the
reputation he worked so hard to develop.
Between his first and his last Premier League appearance for Brighton, only
seven goalkeepers kept more clean sheets. Only Alisson and Ederson completed
more passes, and only Nick Pope and Emi Martinez made more catches.
Those aren't the statistics of a bad goalkeeper. Others' confidence in him
dropped off, but Sanchez has long talked about the sense of self-belief
which first helped him oust fan favourite Mat Ryan as Brighton No 1, and has
now seen him through the other side of a tough few months before his London
move.
"If you don't believe in yourself, who else will?" He asks Sky Sports, half
smiling, at Chelsea's Cobham training base. "I think I did well last season.
"He [De Zerbi] had a view of the team, for one reason or another he didn't
count on me for the specifics of the kind of goalkeeper he wanted and
decided to go with another [Jason Steele].
"He suited what he wanted to do better, and I'm happy for him, because he'd
been supporting me for the two and a half years I'd been the goalkeeper and
now he's got his chance."
De Zerbi hinted at similar when he first dropped Sanchez in March. Though
the Italian never expanded on the details, Steele's success on the ball in
his press-baiting style made it clear.
Sanchez's form had suffered too before he lost his place. He conceded more
than five goals over his expected tally last season, but he didn't become a
bad goalkeeper overnight.
"I was pretty relaxed," he adds. "I know my level as a goalkeeper. I know
I'd play one way or another somewhere, so I relaxed and waited for my
opportunity to come round."
Could he have imagined sitting here as Chelsea's No 1 at the start of the
summer, though? "I probably couldn't have seen that coming," he laughs.
"You hear things as the transfer window goes on, and when Chelsea got in
touch I couldn't say no. What they presented for me, the plan that they had,
it was unbelievable."
It helped that Levi Colwill, a stalwart in the Brighton backline last
season, had already returned to his parent club Chelsea and would be a
familiar face waiting for him at Cobham.
He wasn't the only one. Ben Roberts, Sanchez's goalkeeping coach for his
entire Brighton career, moved to Stamford Bridge with Graham Potter last
year and stayed on after the head coach's short-lived tenure. There was the
lure of working under Mauricio Pochettino, too.
"The whole thing just looked like a real family environment here," he says.
"There was Ben [Roberts] and the relationship I used to have with him,
Moises Caicedo, [Marc] Cucurella, Levi [Colwill], a couple of Spanish
talkers.
"Ben knows my level, he always thinks I'm one of the best and he helped with
the move - he put a good word in and helped to get me to Chelsea. I love
him, I've had an amazing relationship with him for seven years, and I wanted
to come here and work with him.
"I'd played against a lot of the boys for a few years - and I also had a
couple of chats with the manager, I know what kind of manager he is.
"He knows when to tell you that you need to do better, when to give you a
hug, put his arm around you. He's a great manager tactically, but especially
managing players, he gets to know each player individually and everyone's
different, and he gets the best out of us."
The rebuild of Sanchez's reputation as one of the Premier League's best will
take longer than his return to first-team football. It is not helped by the
expectation levels on a squad still finding its feet in front of the world's
glare and a line-up which is yet to settle.
He has witnessed first hand the virtues of time and patience under Potter at
the Amex though he knows, as the head coach found out for himself in April,
those qualities are often always in great supply at Stamford Bridge.
"We've got a great manager, great staff, wonderful individual players, but
it's a young team," he says. "People have heard this a lot of times but
players have come in from a lot of different situations, it's new to them,
and we need time.
"We're improving as quick as we can, we know we want to win but it does take
time. Winning is the most important thing, it gives us the best feeling, but
we'll get there."
An much-needed shot in the arm would be at the Vitality Stadium this Sunday,
live on Sky Sports, against a Bournemouth side still without a win this
season.
Whatever happens, for Sanchez at least, it certainly won't be for a lack of
belief.
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