Exactly one week after Chelsea and Mike Maignan were first linked, the deal is off between the Blues and AC Milan.
According to multiple reports from sources, Chelsea’s offer was lower than the demanded price from the Italian club.
More concretely speaking, CalcioMercato journalist Daniele Longo stated that a difference of only €5 million represented a stumbling block in this operation.
However, the article will not revolve around the dynamics of an already archived matter but on two sub-meanings or deductions derived from such a confusingly bizarre mini-saga.
Deduction 1: Chelsea Keeps Suffering From a Self-Restricting Allergy to Qualitative Experience
Back in March, shortly after the protest outside Stamford Bridge held prior to the home game against Southampton, I wrote an article detailing my stance on why such protests should be encouraged and expanded.
The top four qualification and UEFA Conference League triumph aside, it is safe to say the sentiment has remained the same in the grand scheme of things.
One of the reasons is defined by the radical recruitment model still in place, courtesy of which a host of young players have been signed in a state of chronic disarray.
There is no integration plan, but nevertheless, comparatively lavish sums are splashed for names who may never play a game for the club.
In other words, talents are considered as assets with resale value rather than human beings who should be provided with a healthy and comprehensively assuring platform to get promoted smoothly into the first team ranks, rewarded with the chance to wear Chelsea’s colours on a regular basis in the process.
So, eventually, the line is drawn at Mike Maignan, even though the quoted hiatus was an extremely meagre sum of only €5 million, in relation to the player’s stature, skill set and level of experience.
The 29-year-old first-choice goalkeeper of the French National Team may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but the issue has to do with the prototype instead of the specifics.
Maignan, X, Y or Z, it does not matter. As long as the target in question is deemed to have no significant amount of resale value, there is no genuine push to secure his services.
For further illustration, only five first-team players in the current roster are above the 25-year-old limit (Marc Cucurella – 26, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall – 26, Robert Sanchez – 27, Christopher Nkunku – 27 and Tosin Adarabioyo – 27).
And among those below the aforementioned age border, there are many who have failed to meet the initial flamboyance surrounding their arrivals.
The trend is too obvious now for it to be ignored – profitability first, on-the-pitch product second.
Deduction 2: The Tragicomical Farce Regarding the Goalkeeping Situation as a Whole
The picture gets even grimmer when you consider the entire chain of events that have occurred on the goalkeeping front since Clearlake Capital, Todd Boehly, and co. bought Chelsea in May 2022.
Taking into consideration that no meaningful operation took place in the summer of 2022, the status quo was refreshed around 12 months later.
Édouard Mendy was sold to Al-Ahli for a fee reported in the British media to be around £16 million.
Kepa Arrizabalaga was loaned to Real Madrid just after the start of the 2023/24 Premier League season as a consequence of his will to fill the void created by a long-term injury Thibaut Courtois had sustained in the same week.
To replace the Senegalese and the Spaniard, Chelsea materialised the incomings of Robert Sánchez, at the time Brighton’s third choice goalkeeper, for a legitimately eyebrow-raising and controversial sum of £25 million, as well as Djordje Petrović from New England Revolution, for a fee around £12.5 million, plus £1.5 million in add-ons.
Before the start of the 2024/25 season, Filip Jörgensen jumped ship. £20 million went to Villarreal’s direction.
The question marks around Robert Sánchez’s capability to be a hermetically reliable presence between the sticks for a club of Chelsea’s magnitude were vindicated soon after his signing and continue to be so.
Bar some positive performances here and there, the ex-Brighton goalkeeper has committed a host of costly mistakes against the likes of Arsenal, Brighton, Manchester United, Manchester City, and Aston Villa, to name a few, over the course of two seasons.
Flaws in regards to shot-stopping, distribution and decision-making have culminated with a staggering figure of five errors leading to goal in the league only in 2024-25, according to WhoScored.
On a comparative note, the same website’s data shows Mike Maignan has been responsible for four errors leading to goal in Serie A during the last four seasons together. Staggering difference.
WhoScored also provides a very insightful piece of information when it comes to Chelsea keepers’ ratings in league competitions during the season we just left behind.
Tellingly, Djordje Petrovic leads with a 7.08 mark, closely followed by Mike Penders with 6.85; Kepa Arrizabalaga comes third with an evaluation of 6.73, then Sánchez and Jörgensen make the bottom two, rated with a 6.54 and 6.33, respectively.
Thus, Petrović’s treatment, both on a human and professional level, has been the most sensitive aspect of this multi-faceted discourse.
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A Deep-Dive Into Petrovic’s Time at Chelsea
The Serbian international had earned many plaudits since his days in the MLS, particularly from Kevin Hitchcock, a former Chelsea goalkeeper himself and Petrovic’s goalkeeping coach at New England Revolution.
The appreciation from the 62-year-old was so strong that he went to the lengths of ensuring the Matthew Harding stand would love him and even compared him with none other than Petr Čech.
The data provided by Opta Sports proved he was not exaggerating his confidence in his former student’s abilities.
Petrović had outperformed his expected goals on target (xGOT) by 16.2 since he had joined the league. No other keeper had recorded an xGOT of anything beyond 5.5 in that timeframe.
Did it turn out the way Hitchcock predicted it? Hmm, maybe the comparison with Čech was a bit too much, but it was obvious to notice that the positives outweighed the negatives.
During Mauricio Pochettino’s season in charge, his performances were solid enough to earn him an undisputed starter role for more than half a season over a very shaky and vulnerable Robert Sánchez.
Then came the loan to sister club Strasbourg, allegedly due to new manager Enzo Maresca being more comfortable with somebody with the characteristics embodied by Sánchez distribution-wise.
The loan proved to be impressively fruitful and productive.
The 25-year-old goalie was a key ingredient in Strasbourg’s UEFA Conference League qualification, and the data collected and analysed by WhoScored had him as the highest rated keeper in Europe’s top 5 leagues in 2024/25 and, ironically, the best Ligue 1 keeper in terms of accurate passes, among other very eye-catching stats.
So, one would guess the owners, directors, manager, staff and co. of an environment where there is a youth-led model in place, where meritocracy is prioritised in every decision-making process and where mediocrity is swiftly dealt with, would be eager to promote this updated version of their keeper back to the West London club and allow him to fight for the number one spot once again.
Right? Is it like that? Bewilderingly, for Chelsea, the answer is no.
Djordje Petrovic is not even involved in the Club World Cup squad.
To make matters worse, according to the reporter Ben Jacobs, Chelsea and he have an agreement that he can leave for around £25 million.
Is it a route that a club with a footballing project in place would follow? Doesn’t seem so.
A club with a profit-maximising and cost-minimising one? Quite likely.
Conclusion
In football, as in other dimensions of life, principal judgements can often lead to superficial and shallow deductions.
To say the end of last season was an unimportant success for this group of Chelsea players is not true, as one would contextually expect a top-four finish and, most importantly, a trophy, despite its scale of importance, to galvanise them into further glory.
Anyway, the context is generally demotivating for everyone emotionally affiliated with the Blues.
The present is totally ignored, the future is too foggy, and the media briefs keep becoming more and more hypocritical.
Before and during the negotiations for Maignan, it was widely reported that Enzo Maresca wanted a new goalkeeper, yet straight after the deal was off, the opposite stance was unequivocally endorsed.
Weird and ugly public attitudes, which add to the accumulated distrust and numbness of the previous three years or so.
The mini-saga about Maignan was not solely about Maignan’s potential arrival.
More crucially, it demonstrated once again the sheer incompetence and lack of responsibility of the decision-makers at every level of the hierarchy, sickeningly atypical for a footballing institution of this size.
Main Photo
Credit: IMAGO / Xinhua
Recording Date: 20.06.2025