The game was goalless when Evanilson’s spot-kick was superbly kept out by Sanchez, one of several stops our keeper had to make.

His contributions were made all the more satisfying when Christopher Nkunku snatched a late winner, ensuring the Blues returned to London with three points. Without Sanchez’s penalty save, it could well have been none.

‘I’m happy,’ said the Spaniard.

‘We always study the opponents. I’ve been looking at him. I can see he changes when the keeper dives early. So I held, and I knew if I stayed where I was he was going to put it there, so it was a good decision and a good save.

‘It’s the closest thing you can get to scoring a goal as a keeper,’ he added. ‘You make a penalty save, a few good saves in the game, a lot of actions, and keep a clean sheet, so I’m over the moon.’

The Blues had to ride out a storm to secure a second away win on the spin at the start of our league campaign. Sanchez saw more positive signs of this Chelsea team’s strengths, with resilience the order of the day for much of the game.

‘It was a massive win. The first games of the season have been difficult, this one especially with the way they came at us the first 15 minutes.

‘This is a difficult place to come when they’re coming at you like that. It was really difficult to try to play out with the ball, but the boys did well, they didn’t crumble under pressure and we deserved it.

‘I’m really happy with the team. We are improving game by game, session by session, and we can go to the highest which is what we believe we can do, and this is what we are going to try and do.’

Sanchez also earned words of praise from his head coach Enzo Maresca, who spoke about the keeper’s range of qualities after the game.

'I am very happy with him and it is not only this game,’ Maresca said.

‘Since we have started, Robert is doing very well with us. He is doing well on the ball, in terms of when we need to build, and he is doing very well off the ball when he has to save. We are very happy with him.'