Chelsea goalkeeper search: Liverpool sign Alisson; Leicester agree deal for Schmeichel replacement

UPDATE: Liverpool have completed the signing of Alisson, who is now the most expensive goalkeeper of all time. Of all time!

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It’s safe to say that outside of idle and silly speculation by yours truly, Chelsea aren’t making any late moves for Alisson, who reportedly passed his medical with Liverpool today and is set to finalize his record transfer shortly. Not even a token bid, like at the eleventh hour for Romelu Lukaku last summer. We must have other plans. Hopefully we have other plans.

With Alisson off the market, Chelsea shortlist shrinks to just three names: Gianluigi Donnarumma, Kasper Schmeichel, and Jack Butland. None of them rate as highly as Alisson, and there are plenty of potential concerns over any of the three. Perhaps the least “risky” would be Schmeichel, who’s the oldest at 31 and very much a known quantity after more than 100 Premier League appearances in the colors of Manchester City and Leicester City (as well as a Premier League title with the latter).

Adding potential weight to Schmeichel becoming the latest and penultimate cornerstone of that most unlikely of league titles to leave Leicester is their supposed £12m agreement to sign Danny Ward, who appears to have been made expendable by Alisson arrival on Merseyside. The Liverpool backup, who had jumped ahead of Loris Karius in the pecking order (with Mignolet assumed to be leaving), has just 2 Premier League appearances to his name but was the goalkeeper for Huddersfield Town’s famous promotion from the Championship two years ago when he was on loan there. At 25, he’s certainly ready to step up to a number-one role somewhere and Leicester could be just the place.

That would in turn make Schmeichel expendable. Could he end up at Chelsea? It would not be the most outrageous outcome.