Thibaut Courtois

[El Gato]

Then why just not keep Keylor , who has been very solid for you.

We are. But he's 32. Can't stick your head in the sand over that and do nothing when in 2-3 years shit would change a lot. Better to sign a keeper now for peanuts who's 26 and has many years ahead of him. Keylor loves the club, he's living the dream, is very pious with his faith and probably treats the whole circumstance of his Madrid career, the De Gea fiasco, as a gift from God... He'll get enough game time, more than people expect him to, just based on his professionalism, attitude and devotion.

 

[messi2140]

We are. But he's 32. Can't stick your head in the sand over that and do nothing when in 2-3 years shit would change a lot. Better to sign a keeper now for peanuts who's 26 and has many years ahead of him. Keylor loves the club, he's living the dream, is very pious with his faith and probably treats the whole circumstance of his Madrid career, the De Gea fiasco as a gift from God... He'll get enough game time, more than people expect him to, just based on his professionalism, attitude and devotion.

Of course He was due for a replacement but just not yet , heck you could have gotten Courtois for free next year and keep Keylor as the first keeper for one more year. And Im not sure he sees it as a gift from god. Guy has been treated like shit by Perez who was trying to replace him forerver.

 

[El Gato]

Of course He was due for a replacement but just not yet , heck you could have gotten Courtois for free next year and keep Keylor as the first keeper for one more year. And Im not sure he sees it as a gift from god. Guy has been treated like shit by Perez who was trying to replace him forerver.

Doubtful we could extend the wait. He probably promised his family to look for a way to go back to Spain at all costs and made a deal with his family and/or Real in principle. What's a guarantee we'd be able to get him next season? What if he got pissed off with us bailing on him, chose to go back to Atleti and Chelsea went for Oblak as replacement? + Kovacić became part of the whole thing by proxy so they all wanted to get it done so that everybody is happy and bears no massive grudges.

No offense, but Cules are often looking at it from perspective as if Madrid is unjustly replacing their legends all the time, because of the business approach of the president... I mean.. not something I agree with in most cases where people express outrage. Replacing players ahead of due time is a good thing. The players at 31-32+ will in 90% of the cases have had their time here and you don't want to maximize their stay artificially up until the very end of the contract when you REALLY see them drop off the level.
What's one more year as a starter to a guy like Keylor if what he really cares about is being part of the club rather than being an unquestionable #1? We've already seen him on a gentle downward slope this season with downs and ups towards the end of it. I think you shouldn't doubt his devotion to the institution either. His recent words about Madrid, the 'pura vida' philosophy he lives by.. these things are testament to the opposite. It's only commendable he doesn't mind world class competition. Kiko didn't provide the assurance we needed from a backup too.

 

[DonAndres]

Wolfe is right about how RM have been much smarter than Barca in how they phase out veteran players. It isn't good to wait it out until those players get to a point where their presence is an active detriment to your lineup in many ways. We've seen that with Suarez most clearly recently, but also when we overplayed Xavi for years and never really bothered to worry about a replacement for Alves until a year after he was gone (and had mixed bag seasons prior to that proving that we needed a player to compete with or replace him in the squad). Iniesta too played far more than he should have and we had too much dependence on him towards the end.

Compare that to how they phased out Xabi Alonso for Kroos (and then Casemiro) rather seamlessly. Or Pepe with Varane. Casillas too was sold not long after he declined, whereas we seem to insist on starting vets for 3+ years after their clear decline without competition to their spot.

Why is it necessary to wait until things get ugly and potentially out of hand? Making squad changes/progressions out of last ditch, desperate need has proved to be detrimental to our team for a few years now as well as to how much we end up having to spend for replacements. Doing it comfortably before it becomes problematic is surely a more effective approach.

We have started to go in the right direction. I think getting Umtiti and phasing out Masche right around the time he started to clearly suck was a successful example of this. However we still have big problems with Suarez, Rakitic, and potentially Pique/Busi though I believe they still have it in them under a better coach. Even then, we should be prepared to handle the problem if their decline shows to be more dramatic than hoped for.

 

[El Gato]

^
Yep. Think I predicted a few months ago Barca should and would throw money at Umtiti after he proved he can grow into at least the #2 defensive role and they did. Good move for the club.
Now all that's left is to get rid of Pique who's more of a mark for himself and a toxic influence than someone who is of any help to the new guys. At this point he's just living off the status he built for himself in the Pep and directly post-Pep era, probably guilt tripping the club into keeping him as a Catalan presence type of guy. The closest thing to an institutional disgrace I can think of if you consider he's your 2nd captain(?) or so. Has absolutely nothing to warrant being a leader and defenders absolutely have to be.

Suarez's case is a little more complex, because the market is difficult to navigate for forwards and it's not like he has nothing to offer. You could probably use an upgrade over Paco if anything to address this, but moving him on is probably unwise for another 1 or 2 years. And Raki is the last thing you should worry about I think.

 

[messi2140]

Dont get me wrong just look at my posts , Im very impressed with how Real do business lately. I just felt this one was a bit early.

 

[Andrew M]

You're both missing the point really I think.

It doesn't matter in the slightest if he's worse. Keepers just need to be solid, not exceptional, they don't win you games, they just make sure you don't lose it. Perfect shots and offensive moves always beat keepers. If you have a good enough attacking team, you don't need the best keeper in the world. Would be nice, but never ever in the history of any club is it a must-have for success.

All Courtois needs to be is a good fit - which ATM he probably isn't, but we haven't seen whether he's capable of adapting to high line defenses.

I just can't understand how someone could think Courtois is way worse than De Gea. Lunacy

 

[soul24rage]

Wolfe is right about how RM have been much smarter than Barca in how they phase out veteran players. It isn't good to wait it out until those players get to a point where their presence is an active detriment to your lineup in many ways. We've seen that with Suarez most clearly recently, but also when we overplayed Xavi for years and never really bothered to worry about a replacement for Alves until a year after he was gone (and had mixed bag seasons prior to that proving that we needed a player to compete with or replace him in the squad). Iniesta too played far more than he should have and we had too much dependence on him towards the end.

Compare that to how they phased out Xabi Alonso for Kroos (and then Casemiro) rather seamlessly. Or Pepe with Varane. Casillas too was sold not long after he declined, whereas we seem to insist on starting vets for 3+ years after their clear decline without competition to their spot.

Why is it necessary to wait until things get ugly and potentially out of hand? Making squad changes/progressions out of last ditch, desperate need has proved to be detrimental to our team for a few years now as well as to how much we end up having to spend for replacements. Doing it comfortably before it becomes problematic is surely a more effective approach.

We have started to go in the right direction. I think getting Umtiti and phasing out Masche right around the time he started to clearly suck was a successful example of this. However we still have big problems with Suarez, Rakitic, and potentially Pique/Busi though I believe they still have it in them under a better coach. Even then, we should be prepared to handle the problem if their decline shows to be more dramatic than hoped for.

I agree with what you're saying, but the thing is we also did tried to phase out the veteran players with the future in mind and we just suck at it.

-Fabregas was bought with the idea that he can help phase out Xavi seamlessly, but that didn't work
-We tried to sign Griezmann this summer to phase out Suarez, but he didn't want to come
-Aleix Vidal for Dani Alves, bad purchase
-Coutinho for Iniesta, he was bought in too late and came in January.

The only great phasing out player recently was Umtiti for Mascherano and Cillissen for Bravo after Mats became our #1. Our board made some terrible signings and didn't have much of a plan B while Madrid were smarter and more successful in the market. Also I think it's kinda hard to predict when a player's performance is going to drop. I don't think a lot of people would have guessed that after the 2015/2016 season that Suarez would have drastically under-performed after. I think after this season is over, we'll push hard for a striker (Icardi, Firmino, L. Martinez or whoever) as I think all other positions are covered well. Maybe Pique for De Light could happen.

 

[El Gato]

I agree with what you're saying, but the thing is we also did tried to phase out the veteran players with the future in mind and we just suck at it.

-Fabregas was bought with the idea that he can help phase out Xavi seamlessly, but that didn't work
-We tried to sign Griezmann this summer to phase out Suarez, but he didn't want to come
-Aleix Vidal for Dani Alves, bad purchase
-Coutinho for Iniesta, he was bought in too late and came in January.

I dunno man. In theory yes, but Fabs was never a replacement for anybody, just a peak Rossell transaction, a political one. He was never the right guy and it created a problem when he realised he doesn’t fit in, because Barca didn’t have a plan B in mind and let him go straight back trying to mitigate with Raki. That was the main thing. Recently Madrid don’t tend to let someone go without having a clear idea of who and for how long will fill the hole, even if it’s a risky one. Be it CR, be it Casillas, Pepe, Alonso, Ozil, Raul, Guti. I think the one role we struggled to fill was Khedira.

Also it’s not like Barca didn’t get these right on occasion. Jordi Alba for Abidal? The keepers? All good buys, but guys like Puyol and Xaviesta took a slice of Barca identity with them when they left. That was never replaced to this day.

 

[RMU ReBorn]

Well, Barca won the champions final against Arsenal due to Valdes being exceptional. This is an example of why good enough might not actually be good enough, sometimes you need exceptional

Chilavert was the only reason why match went in to extra time in that France vs Paraguay tie in 98

 

[BBZ8800]

I dunno man. In theory yes, but Fabs was never a replacement for anybody, just a peak Rossell transaction, a political one. He was never the right guy and it created a problem when he realised he doesn’t fit in, because Barca didn’t have a plan B in mind and let him go straight back trying to mitigate with Raki. That was the main thing. Recently Madrid don’t tend to let someone go without having a clear idea of who and for how long will fill the hole, even if it’s a risky one. Be it CR, be it Casillas, Pepe, Alonso, Ozil, Raul, Guti. I think the one role we struggled to fill was Khedira.

Also it’s not like Barca didn’t get these right on occasion. Jordi Alba for Abidal? The keepers? All good buys, but guys like Puyol and Xaviesta took a slice of Barca identity with them when they left. That was never replaced to this day.

You and some others here are talking about Xavi, Iniesta and truly world class players:
1. Who can't be replaced since there is no similar players
2. Plus, it is harder to phase out a player like Xavi or Messi after how much he gave to a team

Then some here mentioned Xabi Alonso, a player not even close in quality to these guys, plus who wasn't a part of a Cl winning teams.

For those who say that Real is good in switching players, lol.
Wait and see their mess after Cr7 has left.
They won't recover from that for years.

Replacing Xabi and Navas is like replacing Rakitic and Bravo.
Even Barca can do that.

Let's see how both teams will replace Messi and Cr7.
Let's see how Real with replace even Modric...

 

[DonAK]

Xabi was a part of the La Decima winning team and was an integral part of the Liverpool team that won the CL in 2005.

 

[BBZ8800]

Xabi was a part of the La Decima winning team.

1 Cl.
Fine.

Still shouldn't be mentioned on the same thread page with Xavi and Iniesta.

I mean, people glorifying Rm's strategy.
And currently they are left with Iscos, Asensios and Clownicius.

Even Barto is a Goat compared to that.

But let's wait and see how truly great those Rm's players are without Cr7.

Real has just lost half of their team in Cr7.
Wait and see.

They will be a comedy for some time now.

 

[DonAK]

1 Cl.
Fine.

Still shouldn't be mentioned on the same thread page with Xavi and Iniesta.

I mean, people glorifying Rm's strategy.
And currently they are left with Iscos, Asensios and Clownicius.

Even Barto is a Goat compared to that.

But let's wait and see how truly great those Rm's players are without Cr7.

Real has just lost half of their team in Cr7.
Wait and see.

They will be a comedy for some time now.

Real Madrid ended up 17 points behind Barca last season. Already disintegrating.

Have to give credit to Atletico too. They have a more balanced team now that can actually create chances and score instead of just defending all game.

 

[raki]

1 Cl.

But let's wait and see how truly great those Rm's players are without Cr7.

Real has just lost half of their team in Cr7.
Wait and see.

They will be a comedy for some time now.

Yeah, let´s wait. Sigh.........