He is tall and ungainly looking and his features carry the practised lugubriousness of the dead-pan comic, suggesting he has borrowed more from Tony Hancock and Les Dawson than David Seaman and Peter Schmeichel.

Ed De Goey, the Chelsea goalkeeper who bosses the second meanest defence in the Premiership, is an unlikely focal point of supporters' attention but where they once had eyes only for Gianluca and Gianfranco, Dennis and Dan, they now seem prepared to usher The Iceman into the King's Road pantheon.

The goalkeeper who appeared to be suffering from dropsy in his early Chelsea career is now viewed as such an essential component of a team chasing three trophies that only a fresh outbreak of Dutch elm disease is likely to prevent him keeping goal for the club for the rest of his active life.

Cult status is not easily won at Stamford Bridge and it is particularly unusual for a goalkeeper. Chelsea, a little like Brazil, are not a team you necessarily watch for the excellence of the man between the sticks.

In recent weeks, however, with the once free-scoring Chelsea forward line in a more self-effacing mood, with the side's challenge for honours looking increasingly fragile and with the need to chisel out a sequence of 1-0 results, De Goey's performances have been of critical importance.

"The game I remember most was at Newcastle. We won 1-0 after being pushed back and put under a lot of pressure, especially in the first 20 minutes, and I like to remember one shot I turned on to the crossbar. It was nice to do it in front of Ruud Gullit, who was the man responsible for bringing me to Chelsea," he said.

`But I really feel that I have been playing well for a year now, from January until the end of last season." In the Cup Winners' Cup final against VfB Stuttgart he kept Chelsea in the game before Zola's winning goal.

This all represents a considerable transformation for the patchy and part-time keeper of much of last season when the manager appeared to have difficulty deciding between him and Dmitri Kharine.

"I just needed time to settle in," says the man signed in the summer of 1997 for £2.25 million from Feyenoord, where he had won a championship and four cups.

"I agree with people who say I did not play very well in my first 10 games or so here. A couple of my countrymen at Arsenal, Dennis Bergkamp and Marc Overmars, told me to take my time to adapt and settle in and it was good advice.

"It is also helpful that I live out of London in Berkshire and feel very happy in my home life. People are more polite here than in Holland. They do not trouble you in your private life. They give you more space." But when it comes to football, Dutch goalkeepers are traditionally given much more space in their native Holland. Brian Clough once observed: "Dutch goalkeepers are protected to a ridiculous extent. The only time they are in danger of physical contact is when they go into a red light district."

"There is a big difference," agrees De Goey, (32). "In Holland there is very little physical contact with the goalkeeper. And the referee will protect you. Here you have to protect yourself. The other difference is that in Holland you can get very easy games, some where you hardly touch the ball at all in 90 minutes.

"Here, at the end of a game, I feel mentally exhausted because I have to concentrate for every minute, watching the strikers on the other side, talking to my defenders. Sometimes I have a headache at the end. You need to make different decisions in England. In Holland you normally come for the ball all the time. It is automatic."

It was a chance meeting with Gullit which brought De Goey to Stamford Bridge. With Holland's first-choice keeper Edwin van der Sar away with Ajax, De Goey, was chosen for a friendly against South Africa in Johannesburg.

Holland won 2-0 and on the flight home De Goey found himself sitting next to the Chelsea manager, who had been invited to the match by Nelson Mandela as guest of honour because of his efforts to promote race harmony. "I had been a Liverpool supporter as a small boy and always wanted to play in England because the league looked so strong."

At Chelsea he has blossomed under the coaching of Eddie Niedzwiecki, himself one of the club's sounder keepers of recent years. De Goey says: "He has been very good for me. Under him I have lost a few pounds and got very fit."

Niedzwiecki says: "Ed is now much better at commanding his area. I have worked with him on crosses a lot. In Holland the goalkeeper enjoys a lot more time on the ball. It's a lot faster here.

"Ed was a bit shaky when he first arrived but he is intelligent and a very good listener. He is very easy to work with."

De Goey, in fact, is a lot happier than he looks.