Gary Neville Names The Chelsea Star Who Could Prove Decisive In Winning The Title This Season

Gary Neville Names The Chelsea Star Who Could Prove Decisive In Winning The Title This Season

Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville believes Edouard Mendy could be the deciding factor if Chelsea are to win the Premier League title.

The Senegalese international was in outstanding form in the 1-0 win over Brentford at the weekend, and speaking after the match, Neville emphasised the importance of the goalkeeper in challenging at the top of the table:

“Edouard Mendy was absolutely brilliant, and if you’re going to win a title you need your goalkeeper. There will be games in a season where you don’t deserve to win, you don’t deserve to take a point, but your goalkeeper makes two or three world-class saves. Mendy was brilliant today and he has made the difference for Chelsea since replacing Kepa. Chelsea were conceding too easily before. There were times when with Kepa, goals were going in far too easy. Some of the goals were two metres inside the post it felt. But it’s a lot harder to score now against them.”

Mendy has exceeded all expectations since arriving from Rennes last year. The 29-year-old has kept 30 clean sheets in 54 appearances for the Blues, as well as only conceding 34 goals.

Against Brentford, the keeper made a couple of world-class saves to help clinch a vital three points for Thomas Tuchel, whose side were hanging on at times in the second half on Saturday.

All of the credit for signing Mendy has to go to Petr Cech who was the one who recommended him to previous manager Frank Lampard. Chelsea probably won’t ever spend a better £22m.

David Tully

David Tully

David has worked as a football reporter for the last fifteen years. Having started as an intern at Snack Media, he then went on to become a freelancer, working on various different sites. At the start of 2023, he took up his current role as content writer for National World's Football News Network.