Ross Turnbull

Chelsea career
Ross Turnbull joined from Middlesbrough in the summer of 2009, signing a four-year contract.

He was available on a free after his contract expired at the Riverside Stadium, opting to head south to Stamford Bridge rather than sign a new deal in the north-east following Boro's relegation.

With no shortage of ambition, the Englishman described the 'fantastic opportunity' he had ahead of him when moving to Chelsea and expressed a desire to push Petr Cech for a starting place, but it was not until October 2009 that Turnbull tasted competitive football in a Chelsea jersey when he replaced Hilario 23 minutes in against Bolton in the Carling Cup, the senior member of the goalkeeping department struck down with a bout of concussion.

A first start for Turnbull followed against APOEL in a Champions League dead rubber. He made a sharp save from a close-range effort inside the opening five minutes, but was eventually beaten twice, at fault for neither, as we drew 2-2.

Injury struck Cech and Hilario ahead of a Champions League second leg against Jose Mourinho's Inter in Mar 2010 so Ross stepped in for the biggest night of his career.

We conceded a late goal to condemn us to defeat, meaning a late, instinctive save from Samuel Eto'o was forgotten and not the tie-deciding stop it could have been.

Five days later Turnbull was beaten by an El-Hadji Diouf header from six yards as Blackburn held us 1-1 in Lancashire, and that was his last involvement of the campaign as Cech returned for the run-in.

For the 2010/11 campaign, Ross was largely the keeper on the bench ahead of Hilario, with Cech enjoying an injury-free campaign and player-of-the-year standard form.

The understudy played twice, conceding four times as Chelsea went out the Carling Cup at home to Newcastle, but ending up on the winning side in a home Champions League win over Zilina.

He was in goal for the reserves as they were crowned national champions, saving a penalty in the shoot-out at the end of the deciding play-off.

Appearances for Turnbull in 2011/12 were limited to a three-game Carling Cup run, in which he saved a penalty against Fulham before being sent offfor giving one away at Everton, a spot kick which his replacement Cech saved. Ross spent the remainder of the campaign as an unused substitute, alternating the role with Hilario.

Turnbull's first league appearance of the current campaign came during our 2-1 win at Everton, when he replaced the injured Cech at half-time, before making a crucial save to deny Leon Osman shortly after being introduced.

He then played the full 90 minutes in our following game, the 1-0 home defeat to Queens Park Rangers.

Pre-Chelsea
An England youth international, Ross was born in Bishop Auckland and came through the ranks at Middlesbrough, making his league debut in May 2006 in a 1-1 draw against Bolton.

Prior to that there had been temporary spells with Darlington, Barnsley, Bradford and Crewe, sides that would have noticed his impressive FA Youth Cup form as Boro reached the Final in 2002/03, beaten by Manchester United.

Another loan spell at Cardiff City was cut short due to injuries in late 2007 as the youngster stepped in for Mark Schwarzer, playing in Boro's 2-1 win over Arsenal. At the end of that campaign, the Australian announced he was leaving for Fulham, meaning Turnbull and Brad Jones would fight it out for the number one spot for the 2008/09 campaign.

Initially it was Jones given the nod by Gareth Southgate, but when he injured himself in the warm-up before the second league game of the season, Turnbull stepped in, keeping his place until the turn of the year.

His last Middlesbrough appearance came against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge back at the end of January when he was beaten by two Salomon Kalou goals. The 6ft 4in stopper had earlier been in the line-up when we ran out 5-0 winners at the Riverside in October.

In total, Ross made 29 appearances for Middlesbrough, in addition to 67 for his various loan clubs.