Chelsea summer signing Mike Penders has admitted he didn’t see his move to Stamford Bridge coming, with the Blues ultimately outbidding Paris Saint Germain for him.
De Morgen have an interview with the 19-year-old as he gears up to join Chelsea in the summer transfer window.
They paid €20m to sign him from Genk in the summer as part of their ongoing efforts to scoop up talent from around the world.
Rather than taking him straight to London, though, they elected to leave him in Belgium, hoping that he would be a regular for Genk this season and continue to develop at his boyhood club.
That’s not proven to be the case so far, although Penders has now seemingly established himself as number one under Thorsten Frink after being brought into the team in the middle of January.
He’ll arrive at Chelsea with big expectations, particularly given the continued questions over Robert Sanche this season and the feeling that summer signing Filip Jorgensen must not be up to standard given the lack of opportunities he’s been given.
It would be a big step up for Penders to become Chelsea number one next season, especially when he admits he didn’t see the move coming.
“Chelsea did not choose me based on those few games in the first team,” he said.
“They had intensively followed me the entire season before at Jong Genk. So, you can see how important the academy is, and why you should take those competitions seriously.
“I didn’t see it coming – Chelsea and PSG are not the smallest clubs. There were still that interest showing, but they pushed through.
“Only PSG did not want to pay what Genk asked, they didn’t get out. Chelsea, on the other hand, came up with a very concrete plan, both sporting and financially.”
