The Tykes Go Gaga Over Their New Keeper: Gabriel Slonina at Barnsley (olf Chelsea)

Reading through this thread and this would've been an excellent move for him instead of Chelsea. The pull of Chelsea is obvious, but as others have pointed out, once the dust settles from your flight and they see you aren't up to the top level, they'll just punt you wherever and hope you can crawl your way back to them, somehow better for the experience. Better to go somewhere where you'll play, improve, and get your foot in the European door.

Not a very shrewd decision by him or his people.

 

It’s sad to see him regress. In his last season in MLS I’d say he was playing better than Brady has been this season which isn’t saying he was a top keeper in the league at the time, but was on a great career trajectory given his age.

 

At his age, inconsistency is factored in so as long as the net contribution is very positive, major errors or the odd poor game will be accepted and the fanboards did have a lot of "he's young, give him time" comments at the start.

By the end of his stint, there was a lot more speculation about how much of his salary they were eating, coupled with plentiful retirement league cracks about MLS. He wasn't missed.

To be fair, for a club that's expected to make the playoffs whenever they're in League One, Barnsley were mediocre all season and despite not being an especially trigger-happy club, sacked their coach in the spring. It wasn't the best environment to develop at.

He has a lot to prove next season and needs to be first-choice wherever he goes, which had better be at a higher level than mid-table League One. If that means the Ekstraklassa, so be it

 

Chelsea are mulling an offer for AC Milan's Mike Maignan, who has refused to extend his current contract. While he'd be a break with their policy of stacking up the best youngsters, guys of his experience aren't available that often and he'll want to be competing for titles so it's likely to go through.
Where that leaves Slonina can be gauged from this Guardian assessment of what that would mean for Chelsea's existing pool of GKs: Slonina doesn't even get a mention. Neither does Swedish teenager Lucas Bergstrom or any of the 5 other GKS contracted to the U-21 side.
This move is looking a lot like EPB 2.0

It is anticipated that his arrival would prompt Chelsea to sell at least one of their goalkeepers. They are open to offers for Robert Sánchez, who was Enzo Maresca’s No 1 last season, and Djordje Petrovic after the Serbian’s loan at Strasbourg. Filip Jörgensen competed with Sánchez for a starting spot after joining from Villarreal last summer. Chelsea are excited about Mike Penders after the 19-year-old Belgian’s arrival from Genk. Kepa Arrizabalaga, who spent last season on loan at Bournemouth, is still on Chelsea’s books and is expected to move on again.​

 

Included in Chelsea's CWC squad:

 

He made the squad, which is good.

What's not so good is that he got in because Petrovic declined to travel to the CWC in order to focus on securing a permanent move

 

Four is better than five I always say. That 4th goalkeeper slot might make the difference. Good news is that is time with the real, actual first team (sort of)!

 

Sure, and let's not dump on the lad but if Petrovic really does leave, Chelsea will unquestionably bring in a replacement for him and push Slonina out to 5th-choice and if the Maignan deal is revived, he'll be pushed to 6th.

His next loan has to be a clear success because he is regressing: League One is no upgrade on MLS or even the USL One and the Championship is no better than MLS and he was the clear No. 1 back home.