Chelsea: Thibaut Courtois acting like a dog who caught his tail over rumours
By George Perry
Thibaut Courtois is in the apparently unprecedented and unforeseen position of Chelsea giving him what he wants. The club should not let this distract them from resolving their goalkeeper dilemma.
Since returning from Madrid, Thibaut Courtois has wanted little else than a return to Madrid. Depending on the day, his comments about leaving Chelsea range from coy to nuanced to “My Uber will be here in 10 minutes.” He even dragged Eden Hazard into the mess, with the two Belgians somehow linking their fortunes together. But now that Chelsea may be pursuing Allison with an opening bid of £35 million, Courtois is wondering whatever could have prompted such a dramatic move in the transfer market.
The Allison rumours are thinly-sourced, and rely a lot on vague sightings of agents in London by credulous tabloids. Allison has been at the top of the goalkeeper transfer list for a range of clubs heading into the summer. Liverpool are especially interested in him after the, um, incidents in Kiev. If Chelsea want him they will need to act quickly and decisively, which in turn entails spending a large amount of money. None of that sounds like the Chelsea we know.
The other pressure on signing Allison is the World Cup. If he leads Brazil deep into the tournament, his transfer value will rise even more and new suitors will emerge. If Chelsea are reluctant to pay his current transfer fee, and are unable to win a multi-party bid war in early June, they certainly will not be able to do so in late July.
Chelsea should go full-bore towards signing Allison by the end of the week if they have any real intention of doing so. And they should. The Thibaut Courtois situation has been untenable for months. He may not have had the performance drop-off of other players, nor the blunderingly overt attitude problems of Willian or David Luiz. But he is barely interested in remaining a Blue, for reasons both understandable (his children) and paltry (the weather, food and culture of Madrid).
Signing Allison will force Chelsea to finally part ways with Courtois. Not only will neither goalkeeper consent to backing up the other, but the Blues will need to sell Courtois to afford Allison. Courtois is a puzzlingly attractive target. He can command a large fee from a motivated club. If Atletico Madrid can sell Jan Oblak (let alone Antoine Griezmann), they could afford Courtois for £30-35 million and still have money left over for many other essential transfers. As a result, Chelsea could come close to breaking even on the goalkeeper swap.
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As long as Chelsea do not get hung up on a matter of a few million pounds – less than 10% of his transfer fee – they can unload Courtois relatively easily. By selling him to either Madrid club, Chelsea will satisfy both clubs and Courtois himself, and finally put this matter to rest.