Chelsea goalkeeper Mike Penders had a full Premier League debut to forget over the weekend.

Following Emiliano Martinez’s injury, Penders made his first Premier League start for Chelsea in their 2-0 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday. Despite Spurs’ dominance, it looked like the game was going to end in a draw.

Maxence Lacroix and rest of Chelsea dressing room ready to support Mike Penders

Understandably, Penders has come in for a lot of criticism since then. Teammate Maxence Lacroix has made it clear, though, that the Chelsea squad are 100% behind the young goalkeeper.

In a post-match interview shared by Chelsea’s official club website, Lacroix said: “He is a young goalkeeper and he has a lot of talent. He will learn from this.

“This can happen in football careers and in life, everyone makes mistakes, and we have to be with him and we are going to be with him. We are behind him. He will help us this season and now we have to help him.”

Lacroix did not cover himself in glory during the London derby either. There were high expectations when the Frenchman joined Chelsea from Crystal Palace during the summer.

Lacroix is an experienced Premier League defender and cost the Blues £52m. He made a promising start to the season, impressing against Fulham, but since then the 26-year-old has been a little bit disappointing.

Chelsea fans will not be happy with Penders and Xabi Alonso right now, but Lacroix also had a terrible night against Tottenham.

Mike Penders’ stats vs Tottenham

What was so disappointing about Penders’ mistake was the fact that the 21-year-old was having a good game up until that point. Some of his stats show that.

For example, Penders made three saves at Stamford Bridge, according to Sofascore. All three were made against shots that came inside the box.

Penders also made two successful run-outs, but his passing accuracy was low (53%) and he finished the game with a goals prevented total of -0.88. As far as full Premier League debuts go, that was one of the worst in Chelsea’s history in the Premier League era.