Official: Mark Schwarzer joins Leicester City, Jamal Blackman in as Chelsea third goalkeeper

Officially official, Mark Schwarzer has left Chelsea to try to find some regular playing time a bit further down the Premier League table.

BREAKING: #lcfc sign goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer from @ChelseaFC on a contract until June 2016. #schwarzerlcfc pic.twitter.com/lxxl50J0Ac

— Leicester City (@OfficialFOXES) January 6, 2015

The Foxes' regular first choice goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel has been out with a metatarsal injury and is not expected to be fit for a few more weeks, so initially Schwarzer will be competing with just Ben Hamer.

Schwarzer joined Chelsea in the summer of 2013 as a much better version of Ross Turnbull, and his experience and quality paid dividends towards the latter part of last season when Petr Cech went down with injury against Atletico Madrid.  All in all, Australia's most capped goalkeeper leaves Chelsea having made 12 appearances and kept 8 clean sheets.  He set a record for the oldest player to ever play for the Blues when he started against Cardiff City on the final day of the season.

Replacing Schwarzer as third goalkeeper is young Jamal Blackman, who was on a short-term loan at Middlesbrough but had not seen much action at all.  Blackman has played this role before, most notably in our 2012 Champions League run.