Robert Sánchez switches to Kepa Arrizabalaga’s old shirt number

As fate would have it, Robert Sánchez got elevated to starting goalkeeper almost immediately after signing as the backup and challenger to Kepa Arrizabalaga, after the latter jumped right quick at the sudden opportunity to join Real Madrid on loan.

And Kepa’s made it pretty clear that he wants to stay there for good, even though they don’t have any sort of future clauses in the contract. In turn, Chelsea have started looking for yet another backup goalkeeper, lest we give that task to someone in the Academy (Lucas Bergstöm currently top of the depth chart there) or the seemingly perma-injured Marcus Bettinelli.

In the meantime, Sánchez has decided to make the number on the back of his shirt better match his new purview as well, picking up Kepa’s vacant No.1 shirt. Sánchez had been No.31 for his first game last weekend, so that might be a fun trivia question were he to make the No.1 truly his going forward.