The 29-year-old Senegalese keeper continued with his fine form to the start of his career at Chelsea, as he helped the Blues secure a 2-0 win over Lille in the midweek UCL fixture.
Mendy played 6 games this UCL campaign, the second in his career, and managed to keep clean sheets in 5 of those. He has kept a whopping total of nine clean sheets out of 12 games last season when Chelsea secured the Champions League. He entered an exclusive club as he is one of three players to manage this feat. The other two keepers to achieve this are, Canizares for Valencia in 2000-01 and Keylor Navas for Real Madrid in 2015-16.
However, he is the only keeper in the history of the competition to keep nine clean sheets in his first-ever UCL campaign.
Although he massively improved his game, some of the credit must also go to Chelsea’s defenders as they are allowing very few shots on target for their opponents. In the final against Manchester City, Mendy had to face only one shot on target.
Not only is he racking up clean sheets in UCL, but also throughout other competitions. He kept a total of 16 clean sheets in the 2020/21 Premier League campaign, and 9 clean sheets this ongoing season.
In the recent AFCON where his national team, Senegal, had won the entire tournament, he kept 3 clean sheets while playing only for 480 minutes. His career might have started a bit late, but at this rate, he will be one of the greats in this decade.
