Robert S\u00e1nchez has been restored to Chelsea\u2019s availability for their next Premier League fixture despite the red card he picked up at Old Trafford. The goalkeeper\u2019s season had carried momentum from his form in the United States into 2025\u201326, but an early lunge on Manchester United\u2019s Bryan Mbeumo left Chelsea a man down and contributed to a 2\u20131 defeat.<\/p>\n
Enzo Maresca had rotated his goalkeeping options last season, briefly handing the role to Filip J\u00f6rgensen. J\u00f6rgensen\u2019s own error at Villa Park earlier in the campaign had, however, reopened the door for S\u00e1nchez and kept competition between the two keepers alive.<\/p>\n
The sending-off at Old Trafford was adjudged to be for the denial of a clear goalscoring opportunity rather than violent conduct, even though the challenge was high. That classification carries a standard one-match suspension in the Premier League. Players sent off for violent conduct typically face longer bans, often of three matches or more.<\/p>\n
Because the suspension is for one game, S\u00e1nchez will miss only Chelsea\u2019s Carabao Cup third-round tie at Lincoln City on Tuesday night. That cup match was one S\u00e1nchez \u201clikely wouldn\u2019t have played anyway,\u201d and Filip J\u00f6rgensen, who replaced S\u00e1nchez after the red card, is expected to start at the LNER Stadium in midweek. Maresca is poised to ring the changes from Saturday\u2019s XI for the cup fixture.<\/p>\n
S\u00e1nchez therefore remains available for the Blues\u2019 Premier League meeting with Brighton & Hove Albion next Saturday. The decision on selection will rest with Maresca, but the outcome of the disciplinary process means Chelsea will not be without their starting goalkeeper for the upcoming league game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
S\u00e1nchez received a one-game ban for denying a clear goalscoring opportunity and will play. Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2983,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,969],"tags":[260],"class_list":["post-2984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-premier-league","tag-bryan-mbeumo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}