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Chelsea FC Transfer Rumours: Blues Look To Juventus Backup As Goalkeeper Cover

TURIN, ITALY - APRIL 23:  Marco Storari (L) and Gianluigi Buffon of Juventus FC prior to the Serie A match between Juventus FC and Catania Calcio at Olimpico Stadium on April 23, 2011 in Turin, Italy.  (Photo by Valerio Pennicino/Getty Images)
TURIN, ITALY - APRIL 23: Marco Storari (L) and Gianluigi Buffon of Juventus FC prior to the Serie A match between Juventus FC and Catania Calcio at Olimpico Stadium on April 23, 2011 in Turin, Italy. (Photo by Valerio Pennicino/Getty Images)
Getty Images

With Petr Cech out of action for a month, many Chelsea fans are slightly worried about having to put up with several games of Henrique Hilario (although he was perfectly serviceable against West Bromwich Albion in the 2-1 win last weekend). Rumour would have you believe that the club are also worried about the quality of their backup, and are looking to Italy to fix them.

Specifically, Chelsea are supposedly interested in Juventus reserve goalkeeper Marco Storari, and with the Turin club making noise about wanting our very own Alex, naturally people have put two and two together and come up with some sort of swap deal that sends Alex one way and Storari the other. I don't think that's reasonable, for a number of... reasons.

Firstly, Alex is no longer anything like expendable with Slobodan Rajkovic off to Hamburg. While selling the Brazilian might have made sense if Rajkovic could fill in at centre half, that's not happening anymore, and so the Blues will need to make a move to replace him before he goes anywhere. I'm not seeing that happen.

Secondly, Storari is too good to be a one-month injury replacement. He's actually a very good goalkeeper who has the misfortune to be stuck behind Gianluigi Buffon at Juventus. At this point, Storari probably deserves a starting gig somewhere, and it doesn't make any sense for him to escape Buffon only to find himself permanently benched in favour of Cech when Chelsea's number one recovers from his knee problem.

That's also not mentioning the fact that spending good money (or any money, really) and a rare non-home-grown roster slot on your backup goalkeeper is a ludicrously inefficient use of the resources at Chelsea's disposal. Yes, Storari would make a fine stopgap until Cech recovers, and a one-month loan would be super. But a permanent transfer? Get out of here.

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