Filip Jorgensen completed a £20m switch from Villarreal to Chelsea in July (Picture: Getty)
Villarreal CEO Fernando Roig Negueroles says Filip Jorgensen was overly ‘hasty’ joining Chelsea this summer and believes the goalkeeper would have benefitted from another season in Spain.
Chelsea were intent on bringing in a high-class ‘keeper to provide cover for Robert Sanchez before the transfer deadline and agreed a deal with Villarreal for Jorgensen worth in the region of £20million.
Jorgensen made 37 appearances in all competitions for Villarreal last term, impressing between the sticks in his first full season with in the club’s first-team squad.
The 22-year-old is yet to make his Premier League debut for Chelsea but started both legs against Servette as Enzo Maresca’s men booked their place in the league phase of the Europa Conference League last month.
The Blues have high hopes for Jorgensen and consider the Denmark Under-21 international as a potential No.1 in the future.
However, Jorgensen may have to be patient for regular minutes under Maresca and Roig Negueroles feels the shot-stopper’s ‘growth and development’ would have been aided by staying put at Villarreal.
‘The truth is that we didn’t want to sell either Alex [Sorloth] or Filip. We knew that we had to make a sale, but we didn’t foresee those,’ he told Spanish publication AS.
Roig Negueroles believes Jorgensen may have been too ‘hasty’ with the move (Picture: Getty)
‘In the end it happened because both players wanted to leave and the offers were attractive enough to accept.
‘In both cases we followed the player’s wishes, but we wouldn’t have sold.
‘We knew that we would have to make a sale this summer, but not those two.’
The Danish goalkeeper made 37 appearances for Villarreal last season (Picture: Getty)
He added: ‘We didn’t expect to sell Jorgensen so soon, especially as soon as this year.
‘We were aware of his enormous potential and we thought he would leave, but not now.
‘Honestly, and I have made this clear to him and to those around him, I think Jorgensen was hasty [with his departure].
‘He had room for improvement and growth here, but the move was the player’s will.’
It was a summer of major upheaval at Stamford Bridge (Picture: Getty)
While Roig Negueroles disagrees with Jorgensen’s decision to move on from Villarreal, he does not ‘regret’ the sale.
‘We didn’t intend to make that sale, but it happened this way because he is a great goalkeeper for the present and the future and with qualities that can make him one of the most important goalkeepers in Europe,’ he continued.
‘I don’t regret his departure. These are football situations.’
Jorgensen was called up by the Denmark U21 team during the international break, playing the full 90 minutes of the side’s 4-2 defeat to Iceland before being forced off with an injury in a 5-0 victory over the Czech Republic.
The severity of Jorgensen’s problem remains uncertain but Denmark boss Steffen Hojer was hopeful the goalkeeper had not sustained a serious injury.
‘I don’t really know. He’s being checked. I don’t know how bad it went, but it was certainly [bad] enough for him to go off,’ he told reporters shortly after the game.
‘I just asked if he was okay. He was annoyed that he had to go off, but hopefully it is not something that is really wrong.’
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