{"id":596700,"date":"2021-07-20T10:25:27","date_gmt":"2021-07-20T14:25:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=596700"},"modified":"2021-07-20T10:25:27","modified_gmt":"2021-07-20T14:25:27","slug":"chelsea-marcus-bettinelli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/07\/20\/chelsea-marcus-bettinelli\/","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea Interested in Making Marcus Bettinelli Third-Choice Goalkeeper"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/telegraphsport\/status\/1417458037971951630?s=21\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">According to Sam Wallace of the Telegraph<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/07\/20\/ike-ugbo-krc-genk\/\" target=\"_self\">Chelsea<\/a> are interested in making former <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/07\/20\/fulham-harry-wilson\/\" target=\"_self\">Fulham<\/a> goalkeeper Marcus Bettinelli their third-choice goalkeeper. The news that the Blues are seeking a third-choice makes perfect sense considering the timing of AFCON in the forthcoming season.<\/p>\n<p>Taking place in the middle of the campaign, the Africa Cup of Nations will include several Premier League stars from a number of clubs, and that includes Chelsea with Edouard Mendy likely taking part with Senegal. This will leave Kepa Arrizabalaga to fill in with no third choice in place.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s where Bettinelli could come in, however. The Blues will need a backup to Arrizabalaga; a cheap alternative who will be a \u2018break glass in case of emergency\u2019 option. And the former Fulham man ticks that box.<\/p>\n<h2>Chelsea Interested in Marcus Bettinelli<\/h2>\n<h3>Currently Without a Club<\/h3>\n<p>Since leaving Fulham at the end of last season, Bettinelli has been without a club. Usually, in that scenario, players move down a league in logical fashion. If they\u2019re not good enough for their current club then surely they\u2019re not good enough for those above? Think again. In the case of Bettinelli, if Chelsea pursue a deal, he\u2019ll be going from relegated Fulham to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/05\/31\/champions-league-final-3\/\" target=\"_self\">European champions.<\/a> It doesn\u2019t get much better than that.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas Tuchel needs a third-choice and that proposed choice needs a club, making a deal suitable for both parties. At 29, Bettinelli will likely be content with a place in the reserves, especially at such a top club. He is past his prime with no need for first-team action.<\/p>\n<p>The ex-Fulham man won\u2019t expect to receive a substantial amount of game time, if any at all, should he makes the move and, at Chelsea, he may not see that as a deciding factor against a potential move.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<br \/>\n<a id=\"LnBGHIH0QWt5-zE-QxsvVQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1231704839\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'LnBGHIH0QWt5-zE-QxsvVQ',sig:'OjjYbBuqvF2ZJxkc29pb3fJNDmvdFWzx3YnCWUAeWqk=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1231704839',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to Sam Wallace of the Telegraph, Chelsea are interested in making former Fulham goalkeeper Marcus Bettinelli their third-choice goalkeeper. The news that the Blues are seeking a third-choice makes perfect sense considering the timing of AFCON in the forthcoming season. Taking place in the middle of the campaign, the Africa Cup of Nations will [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3402,"featured_media":596701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11,7188,28],"tags":[6586],"class_list":["post-596700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-premier-league","category-chelsea","category-rumours","category-transfers","tag-marcus-bettinelli"],"modified_by":"Tom Cunningham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3402"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}