Thibaut Courtois

Mitchell1978

Senior Member
stupid decision from Madrid. unless its De Gea or Neuer replacing him, Navas was perfectly fine.

Courtois is better then De Gea and Navas though Navas is an excellent keeper, so doesn't really improve them that much but 35 million if true is a steal.

Neuer has barely played the last 12 months.
 

JamDav1982

Senior Member
Courtois is better then De Gea and Navas though Navas is an excellent keeper, so doesn't really improve them that much but 35 million if true is a steal.

Neuer has barely played the last 12 months.

No he isnt.

DDG been poor for Spain but been far better than Courtois past couple seasons outwith that.
 

Givenchy

Senior Member
De Gea is clearly better than Courtois. cant wait to watch Messi nutmeg him again in the clasico.

Madrid allegedly can't afford Hazard yet waste 35million on a position that would be fine for another few years, feel bad for Navas, look at all the times hes saved Madrid (vs Bayern especially) and every season they look to replace him
 

BenRobbins

New member
He just had a great world cup, best goalkeeper there, his best years are still ahead of him.

He had a great world cup but that still doesn't really relate to what i said.

I rank Ederson and Lloris above him in England aswell personally.

I think if Chelsea replace him with Alisson, they wont suffer too much.
 

El Gato

Villarato!
Just cuz Chelsea are willing to let him go relatively cheap to get a replacement (who?) doesn't mean it's the right option for RM. AT ALL.

Courtois is the polar opposite to an Alisson-type as a keeper. He's the lanky fucker that is almost unbeatable to any shot above the knee on short distance within the 5-yard box and only exceptional precision masters like Messi or Suarez get stuff past him in those situations, because they're able to aim between his legs or just to the side of his hip/thigh. He's also the right guy to reach those amazing semi-low shots from 20-25m by Messi, he excels in saving those.

But that's about it.

RM leave hectares of space behind CBs from beginning of times with any CB pairing, also because of offensive fullbacks the danger is doubled. Courtois only ever played behind deep blocks staying at the penalty box line with early-Simeone Atleti, Mourinho & Conte Chelsea and even with Belgium. He NEVER had to deal with having to make a super rapid reactionary narrowing of the shooting angle that Navas/Casillas types do so well. Look at 3:10 (best example) or 4:30, 4:40, 4:50 of Keylor saves in the video below:

Courtois is best at semi-long shots at bay and making himself HUGE to wingers coming into the box from the side and dealing with those great shots that are near-impossible to reach for most average size keepers. Best exemplified by 0:42, 3:20, 7:03 below. It's mostly the striking elite that find these weak spots regularly, many shit counters get stopped, but his limitations are obvious. Look at 1:00 and how he is GLUED to the 5-yard box:

RM had similar problems with Diego Lopez who was great when Madrid played quite conservative and hesitant to get their line higher than ~30-yards up the pitch. His best games are like United at Old Trafford where he was superb at making the great saves from corners/range and helping out at crosses/corners. But agility wise the taller keeper becomes so overexposed with Real's backline, had many problems in the followup league campaign.

All in all I don't mind having him for that price, even if he's not the right fit. If it backfires on him, we can always bench him and let Navas back in, even if he makes an occasional blunder.
 

Icarium

Lifestealer
Great post Wolfe. I completely agree, I have no idea why RM is signing Courtious. Navas was perfectly fine and he is not that old. De Gea was the only keeper who would be an upgrade.
 

xXKonan

Senior Member
It was baffling why we were linked with him back in 2014. Well it was mostly Catalan media on the Courtois hype train at the time, but while he's a great Goalkeeper no doubt, he wouldn't have fit us at all as his style was dramatically different from what we needed.
 

Devils

Senior Member
[tw]1026504483927412738[/tw]

Courtois has gone AWOL in an attempt to FORCE his transfer to Madrid.

Surely a club of Real Madrid's class couldn't be advising Courtois to take this extreme measure after FAILING to sign any relevant player and having key players wanting to leave (Ronaldo and now Modric).

Surely no chance. SMH.
 

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