(Video): Chelsea loan player excels again – but there is one major question mark about his progress | OneFootball

We’ve written a few times about goalkeeper Djordje Petrovic’s improvements this season. He’s on loan at our sister club Strasbourg, and the stats have him among Europe’s best goalies this season.

Yesterday was a new high for him – his team took the lead against Auxerre but then had to hold on to it, and the Serbia international was excellent.

The highlights from the game show him saving a lot of shots, playing good passes into midfield, and even sweeping up really comfortably behind the back line. We don’t remember the last time we saw a Chelsea goalkeeper with THREE clearing headers outside of his box in a game.

Manager Liam Rosenior has him playing behind a high line and playing the ball short, and the former New England Revolution stopper has risen to the challenge. Mauricio Pochettino didn’t ask much of him in possession last season once he’d become our first choice, and while that made sense at the time, he’s clearly learned and improved a lot since then.

You can see the highlights in the clips embedded here:

Petrovic’s improvement is notable – but with one major caveat

Djordje Petrovic playing in goal for Strasbourg.

As one commenter points out, it’s not a perfect comparison to the Premier League as there’s not that much pressure on Petrovic when he’s in position. The high intensity, co-ordinated pressing you get from 80% of the English top flight isn’t present here, but you still see plenty of nice passes and calm decisions.

While he doesn’t yet look like a game changing elite goalkeeper who can suddenly change our fortunes, we do see evidence of the improvements on last season that the stats have already picked up, and that’s obviously a very good thing.

We look forward to him finishing the season well and returning to challenge current first team options Robert Sanchez and Filip Jorgensen in the summer.