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

One step closer to the starting lineup as Robert Sanchez gets a comically bad red in the 5th minute against United.

Slonina not on the bench today, but he will be next week.

 

Slonina on the bench, probably as third keeper. Also in the fine print is Landon Emenalo for a potential promotion day / debut.

 

Any news?

 

I’m guessing not a year where we will see him at all. Hopefully next season he gets a good loan.

 

He's Chelsea's 3rd-choice GK. When was the last time a PL side's - hell, any pro side's 3rd-choice - saw action without unless both the No. 1 and the No. 2 are injured or start shitting the bed?

He has to go on loan next season or negotiate an exit from Chelsea for the same reasons that Kelleher left Liverpool for Brentford, with Liverpool's blessing I might add. He had been brilliant for Liverpool every time they played him but like any good club, they understood when a player simply has to move on.

Let's hope he follows in the footsteps of Penders and and Petrovic before him; a loan to affiliated Ligue 1 side Strasbourg where he'll have near-guaranteed starter status at the top end of a Top 5 league under a very good coach, then a sale to another top side. Strasbourg sold 3 out of last season's 4 GKs, all of them young, and all of them went to very good sides - Bournemouth, Lens and Braga - and as starters to boot

 

On the bench for the 1st team:



Joins Ethan Wady in the honor of sitting on the Chelsea bench as a 2nd GK to watch an EPL match.

 

Slonina apparently down to 4th in the Chelsea pecking order. With Filip Jorgensen out with an undisclosed injury, Teddy Sharman-Lowe (returned from his loan at Bolton a month ago) takes up the backup role for the 4th consecutive league match.

Since the last posts in this thread, Slonina has played once for the U21s, conceding the only shot on target he faced in a 2-1 win against Leicester on January 26. No other appearances on the team sheet, bench or starting, for any level of Chelsea otherwise.

 

Dude can't even get U-21 games? That's not looking good for his prospects.

 

He's contracted until 2028. so he'd better insist on a loan for next season and get his agent to work on it, pronto.

He's still only 21 but without PT he's going to be another one of these great youth GKs who spend their careers "on the bench." It took Klinsmann until last season to become a regular, at the ripe old age of 27.

Slonina was a starter in MLS at 19 and MLS >>> Premier League 2. Hell, League 2 >>> "PL 2

 

Chris Brady appears to have chosen the better carrer path, so far, though I'm sure Gabe earns a shed load more money.

 

Gonna go down as one of the worst American transfers in recent memory

 

Slonina earns a shedload more money than Brady (about 11 times Brady's salary) now and over the next 2-3 seasons. To the extent that money is the overriding criteria, what matters is a) who will be earning more in 2029-30 and b) who'll have earned more by 2040 when they'll both be 35 and about to retire.

With Slonina on 2 million sterling a year and Brady on about 185k, that's probably advantage Slonina by virtue of him being in the English pyramid. Even if he stagnates and leaves on a free in July 2028, he's still quite likely to be offered 250-300k sterling, which is a fair bit more than Brady is scheduled to earn that year.

The question is who'll have more professional - and personal - satisfaction and my money's on Brady but that will change if Gabe is loaned out in September to a club where he'll have a real shot at being starter and succeeds there. BLUF leaving Cobham in the summer is an imperative.

 

He really needs a loan because if you look at his record, he got relegated with Eupen and released by Barnsley (though he was injured).

 

Definitely and he has to push for it, hard, and it also has to be a good loan: one where he has a legitimate shot at being a staarter but has to fight for his place.

If it's in Europe, that means the bottom 6 of the Eredivisie or Belgium, or the equivalent of Ligue Deux, La Liga 2, BL 2-3, etc. He'll have options in England too, but he didn't impress when he was on the pitch at Barnsley so they may not be that good and it's possible that a complete change of scenery is what he needs to prosper.

 

yeah almost as bad as turner to arsenal or steffen to man city or fletcher to nottingham or reyna to nottingham or downs to southhampton.....but not quite as good as miazga to chelsea or bassett to feyenoord or mihailovic to AZ or bello to arminia bielfeld or tolkin to holstein kiel or taylor booth to twente or cannon to qpr or kolesho to espanyol or hoppe to southhampton or jordan morris to swansea

but other than all those, yeah, totally agree

 

So you don't think young Americans should go to Europe? Agreed!

 

For a goalkeeper, if you have a starting job as a teenager - anywhere - you should really hard if presented a transfer to give that up. Being a first team starter as a teenager is a rare golden opportunity.

Yeah, Chelsea money was tough to turn down. But starting for Chicago was a great spot for his career at that time.

 

Absolutely no garranties that he would be keep on starting ahead of more talented Brady. Chelsea was just his lucky golden ticket. Slonina isn't high ceiling prospect, exactly like Steffen.

 

No guarantees about anything. But Chicago still offered the best chance for him to play.

 

If a 19 year-old at any position has a chance to play first-team football, he has to take it and ride it for 2 full seasons. Doubly so for a GK.

That way you have a body of work built over an extended period to point to if the big money move to a loan army glamour club move doesn't pan out. It will also let you insist on a better first loan destination than some random mid-table D2 side in Belgium.

The money's good but this season was over before it even started and a player is only as good as his last game: Slonina's last senior game was 15 months ago and will have been 18 months ago when the season ends.

 

Half the players you mentioned still got playing time. Slonina went from a starter to just being idle for what 3-4 years now? He had way more stagnated progression than literally all of your strawman examples lol

 

ok - let me re-try

horrible transfers roughly in the same ballpark as slonina to chelsea: turner to arsenal, steffen to man city, erik palmer brown to man city, miazga to chelsea, koleosho to espanyol, reyna to nottingham

in fact, i think most of those are worse than slonina to chelsea because those players are actually expected to play and contribute and have better player histories as pros