Chelsea take on Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final on Sunday and Pochettino will have to decide whether he wants to use Petrovic or Robert Sanchez in front of goal.
Sanchez picked up a knee injury during the second week of December and since then Petrovic has stepped up and done a remarkable job. However, Robert Sanchez has made a full recovery and is now pushing to reclaim his No 1 spot.
Pochettino now has a decision to make regarding his first-choice keeper on Sunday and the manager has revealed that he’s already made his choice.
The Blues boss told the press: ‘I have decided who will be the goalkeeper. 99 per cent my team is in my head. I have not told the players yet because always, anything can happen. So I prefer to wait until tomorrow, or maybe after tomorrow.’
The Blues signed Robert Sanchez last summer from Brighton but he’s struggled to get up to pace at Stamford Bridge. In 16 Premier League appearances, he had managed to keep only three clean sheets, conceding 25 goals.
On the other hand, Petrovic has conceded 16 goals in 10 league appearances and he has a save percentage of almost 70. In 816 minutes of league football, Petrovic has made 37 saves while Sanchez managed only 53 in the 1434 minutes that he was on the pitch.
Petrovic is definitely not the long-term solution for Chelsea but at the moment, he’s a much more stable keeper than Robert Sanchez and Poch is going to rely on him for the final.
Sanchez has not played for more than 2 months and there’s no way the Chelsea manager will bring him back into the starting line up in a cup final, that too against Liverpool.
Chelsea currently have 8 players missing due to various injuries and almost 90% of them are defenders. The manager is already without key players like Thiago Silva, Cucurella and Reece James so the last thing he will want is to destabilize his No 1 spot by removing his in-form keeper.
There are rumours that Robert Sanchez will be sold in the summer and while this news still has not been confirmed, the former Brighton man will be good enough to start on the bench at Wembley.
