Contract dispute shows that Chelsea should cut ties with Thibaut Courtois
Thibaut Courtois has two years left on his Chelsea contract and is only one year removed from the worst season of his career. In the most Thibaut move of all time, he has decided this is a time to ask to be the highest-paid goalkeeper in the world.
Chelsea should cut ties with Thibaut Courtois. He is a good goalkeeper but is a completely inconsistent person around whom it is impossible to build a team. Despite the fact that Courtois has two years left on his contract he has apparently asked for a renewal and a raise.
Courts already makes £80,000 per week on his current Chelsea deal. He is currently seeking £200k per week. He had a good season this year but those numbers are inflated if you delve deeper. He is asking for 250% wage increase despite being only one season removed from the worst season of his career.
Goalkeepers are the steady hand and mind upon which the rest of the team sits. They need to be consistent and calming forces the club can count on physically and mentally. Courtois sometimes meets the physical expectations. But he always fails the mental ones.
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It is never more than 3 months between Courtois controversies. Whether he is making statements blaming his teammates for his goals record, getting involved with the police outside a nightclub the week of a match, courting the advances of other football clubs mid-season, injuring himself making ads for the NBA (he plays in the Premier League), leaving his pregnant girlfriend or sleeping with a teammate’s wife, Courtois is a mental liability to any team that is trying to build a legitimate long-term contender.
In a way, Courtois seeking parity with the highest-paid goalkeeper in the world (David De Gea) is the most Courtois move he could make. It makes no sense and shows that he is totally and unbelievably out of touch. Gianluigi Buffon would never do this. Neither would Manuel Neuer.
The truth is simple. Thibaut Courtois has all the physical gifts to be a good goalkeeper. But being a goalkeeper is about so much more than simply being tall and having good reactions. Courtois is too quick to accept his faults and even more quick to blame others for them.
To quote Lev “The Black Spider” Yashin (widely regarded as the best goalkeeper of all time):
"What kind of a goalkeeper is the one who is not tormented by the goal he has allowed? He must be tormented! And if he is calm, that means the end. No matter what he had in the past, he has no future."
That’s the truth with Courtois. He is out of touch and can never accept his own faults. It would have been nice for it to work out but his behavior in contract talks demonstrates the truth. As Yashin said, he has no future.