Chelsea deserve a world-class goalkeeper: Thibaut Courtois is not it
They say that the first step in solving any problem is acknowledging that is exists in the first place. Chelsea and their fans need to come to terms over Thibaut Courtois.
Thibaut Courtois is not a good goalkeeper. Please do understand this does not come from a place of spite, loathing or fun. It’s a place of pain. Watching Thibaut Courtois play goalkeeper – for Chelsea, of all teams – is a literally painful experience.
First, lets start with the positives, because this is not to say he is the worst goalkeeper in Europe. Thibaut Courtois is a big guy, with decent reaction speeds and hand-eye coordination. This gives him a lot of a goalkeeper’s raw materials to work with.
But goalkeeping is more than attributes. It is an art. Goalkeeping takes a different kind of person to do it. To love a game called football, played almost entirely with the feet and yet choose to be the one player out of the lot whose job relies upon the use of his hands. This takes an individual. Gianluigi Buffon wrote a poem to his goal – can you think of a midfielder like that?
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The position is wrought with pressure and can often be thankless. Lev Yashin, perhaps the greatest goalkeeper in history, said:
"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."
Goalkeepers are intense mental characters. A coach of mine who played as a goalkeeper during his career in League One and the Championship (take that for what you will) once said 10% of goalkeeping is with the hands and feet, 90% is with the eyes, heart and mind.
Thibaut Courtois is a weak person mentally. Since arriving in the Premier League he has not improved as a goalkeeper at all. In fact, he once threatened to quit if Chelsea did not fire the goalkeeping coach.
Thibaut Courtois has had the fantastic advantage of playing behind some of the best defenses in Europe. At Atletico Madrid he was coached by Diego Simeone and protected by Diego Godin. Both the Diego’s in that sentence are known not only for their leadership but their organization and fighting spirit.
Then he came back to Chelsea where he had Jose Mourinho and John Terry. Enough said. Antonio Conte then arrived. Courtois was decent for that season, but the Chelsea still had Terry. Even in a non-playing capacity, the captain trained and imparted leadership all season.
Thibaut Courtois in all his best years has not once been responsible for the organization of his defense. When he was younger this was acceptable. But as he progresses he needs to take on that duty. The goalkeeper’s responsibility is to organize their defense. It is part of the privilege of their fantastic full-pitch view.
Only two Chelsea defenders knew who they were marking in the poor set-piece defending against AS Roma. They needed their goalkeeper to be a leader. The keeper must take charge of that situation if it has not been sorted out already by a Diego Godin or John Terry.
A clean sheet is the responsibility of the whole team, but imparted 50-50 between the goalkeeper and defence. They need to be one. That is why Petr Cech, the best goalkeeper in Premier League history, learned the languages of all those who played with him. He was fluent in English, Czech, French, Dutch, Spanish and German.
Thibaut Courtois, on the other hand once famously said Chelsea’s defenders were not good enough and he preferred to play with the Belgian national team because they were better. Talk about throwing your teammates under the bus! That is not even friendship, let alone leadership.
Chelsea defenders are not doing a good job at the moment. They have been poor, but they are flying blind. Courtois barely even speaks during play. He sometimes adjusts his wall. But he does not organize play, call out runners or even pretend to organize set piece defensive zones and man-marking.
Chelsea’s defence are doing 25% of their job at most. But Courtois massively lets them down by only doing 10% of his. If a clean sheet is 100% of a job well done Chelsea have done 35% of it. Chelsea’s goals allowed column reflects this.
Courtois also has poor command of his box. He collects the ball rarely and punches more than any good goalkeeper should. Punching is an example of bad goalkeeping. It’s a panic move. The goalkeeper read the ball wrong and should have caught it, or at least prepared to block a lost header. Punching simply leaves a keeper without control of the ball or the situation, and out of position for what comes next.
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Roma provided a fantastic example of a poor read disguised in a beautiful finish by Edin Dzeko. He should never have been able to make contact with the ball in the middle of Courtois’ box in the first place. Courtois should have read it, caught it, and started a counter-attack. That’s what Manuel Neuer would have done.
Finally, his attitude and sense of self-worth is absurd. He is demanding Chelsea give him equal pay with David De Gea or he will leave the club. He wants to be paid more than Manuel Neuer, on par with the best-compensated goalkeeper in Europe simply because he thinks he deserves it. Courtois mentally believes he is in a class of excellence that, in reality, he can not even see as he sits so far beneath it.
The sad truth is Courtois could be a phenomenon, but he is his own and Chelsea’s worst enemy. It doesn’t help that people are convinced he is fantastic and say he is when he is not. Chelsea fans need to pull their heads out of the sand.
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He is not Petr Cech, he is not David De Gea and he is certainly not Peter Schmeichel. Courtois is a shell of the goalkeeper he should be. Like so many other disappointing, weak character Chelsea players the club would be better off getting rid of him and building again.