John Obi Mikel has claimed that Chelsea must find a new goalkeeper if they want to become Premier League title contenders.
Robert Sanchez, Chelsea's current number one, had a game to forget at the weekend as he was at fault for both of Brighton's goals in Chelsea's 4-2 win over The Seagulls at Stamford Bridge.
First, he failed to claim a high ball which was headed in by Georginio Rutter before he then gifted the ball directly to Carlos Baleba to score Brighton's second.
Fortunately, a four-goal haul from Cole Palmer spared Sanchez's blushes, but Mikel, who made 372 appearances for Chelsea between 2006 and 2017, believes the Blues must replace the Spanish shot stopper.
"[If] you want to be a title-winning team, you need a top, top goalkeeper," Mikel said during the most recent episode of his The Obi One Podcast.
"Let’s not kid ourselves, we don’t have that," he added. "No disrespect to Robert Sanchez, he’s a fantastic goalkeeper but we need a top, top goalkeeper to compete."
The former Nigeria international continued: "We know he’s not very good with his feet, that’s not a problem but we need a goalkeeper that’s assured in the goal, can make saves but I watched the game on Saturday and he was at fault for both goals."
Watch the highlights of Chelsea's 4-2 over Brighton here:
Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca, however, has faith in Sanchez's ability between the sticks, even if Mikel does not.
Speaking after Saturday's win over Brighton, Maresca came to Sanchez's defence, saying that errors are inevitable while players are still becoming used to his tactics.
"I said to Robert and I said to the players, from now we are going to concede 10 more goals like the way we conceded that second goal, because it is the way we want to play, and we’ve already scored goals with Robert involved in the build-up," the Italian explained.
"But it’s important that after the mistake the team completely continued the same way," he added. "That means they enjoy it, they like it and they see that also we will win games playing like that."
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