Easy Does it, Carlo

Fancy a bit of a challenge? Try making a list of the second choice ‘keepers in all 20 premiership clubs. Bet you can’t do it.

Too difficult? OK, here’s a much easier one. Just choose your top 6 goalkeepers in the premiership. It shouldn’t take too long.

Done it? Good. Now for the mindreading bit. We reckon there’s a very good chance that whichever team you support, your list contains not just one but two Chelsea ‘keepers – Petr Cech and Carlo Cudicini. So the irony is that if you managed to complete the first list, it would contain a goalkeeper who also made it onto your second list.

The question is, how do Chelsea do it? With Petr Cech playing all but a handful of games every season, how do they retain the services of a fantastic goalkeeper who would walk into virtually every other premiership side?

Presumably they pay him very well – after all, they would certainly need to in order to persuade a player of his ability to agree to play second fiddle when he could do so much better elsewhere. And since 32 year old Carlo Cudicini has just signed an extension to his contract which will keep him at Chelsea until 2009, money evidently has its compensations.