Chelsea signed one of the best young goalkeepers in the summer 2024 transfer window when they purchased breakout star Filip Jorgensen from Villarreal, but they’ve mostly kept him as a backup and a cup goalkeeper to incumbent starter Robert Sanchez.
But as Chelsea stockpile young goalkeeping prospects around the world for their loan army, it’s become painfully obvious that, in the short-term, Sanchez is not the solution between the sticks for the Blues.
With Chelsea set to return to the Champions League next season, the Conference League winners are eyeing a much bigger and more immediate name in goal in AC Milan star Mike Maignan, who led the Rossoneri to the Scudetto just a few years ago.
According to a report from Italian transfer insider Alfredo Pedulla, Chelsea are about to make a transfer proposal to Milan for Maignan, while Milan have found Torino’s Vanja Milinkovic-Savic as a possible replacement.
Chelsea can win this game of GK musical chairs
Interestingly enough, “VMS” was once linked to the Manchester United job as a possible Andre Onana replacement. Milinkovic-Savic isn’t better than Maignan, but he did outperform Maignan in the 2024/25 Serie A season and was arguably the best goalkeeper in the league on performance last year.
The report mentioning Milan finding a qualified replacement for Maignan is huge, because moreso than any other position, being able to find a replacement is a huge reason why goalkeeper transfers do or don’t happen.
Take, for example, Gianluigi Donnarumma. He didn’t move to Juventus in 2021 because the Bianconeri couldn’t find a team willing to take on Wojciech Szczesny at that time.
Goalkeeper transfers are a game of musical chairs. Chelsea want Maignan as a big-name, world-class goalkeeper to stand toe-to-toe with the likes of David Raya and Alisson Becker, and in order to do that deal, they need Milan to find a star in Serie A who is good enough to replace Maignan.
Milinkovic-Savic is that guy for the Rossoneri, and he shouldn’t be too hard to acquire from Torino. Meanwhile, once that’s in place from Milan’s side, Chelsea should be able to bring in Maignan, as Milan have shown time and time again with players as important as Ismael Bennacer, Sandro Tonali, and now Theo Hernandez that they are willing to sell anyone at the right price.
At 29, Maignan is still in his prime as a goalkeeper and maybe even still not yet there, so this a no-brainer for Chelsea, especially when you compare Maignan’s consistency and overall body of work to, ahem, Sanchez’s.
What will be really interesting to see is the price differential between the Maignan and Milinkovic-Savic transfers, because, if Torino play their cards right, it may not be as big as you’d think, which Chelsea will take as another feather in their cap.
Joe Soriano covers Tottenham for FanSided’s Hotspur HQ and writes about Real Madrid for The Real Champs. He has extensive experience covering world football since 2014. Joe is an editor for The Trivela Effect, where he covers the biggest clubs in European football. He has watched professional sports regularly since 2002 and can be found playing the same sports he covers with his friends.