According to reports from ESPN, Belgian World Cup Golden Glove winner Thibaut Courtois has informed Chelsea manager Maurizio Sarri that he wants to leave the club and join Real Madrid.
Removing the emotion of “no, he can’t go because we only have Willy Cabellero and Rob Green!” cries from Chelsea fans, it would make sense to have a look and see whether this is the best moment to cash in on the goalkeeper.
It is important to remember that the key to a good recruitment model is to buy when the right player is undervalued and sell when a player is overvalued.
Could it be that the €100m+ that Real Madrid are prepared to pay for Courtois means that he is actually overvalued by the European Champions League winners?
Thibaut Courtois
Using Wyscout we can see that Chelsea paid €9m for Thibaut Courtois seven years ago, before loaning him to Atletico Madrid for three seasons.
Since the 2014/15 season, Courtois has been Chelsea’s number one and his value has increased.
Courtois in the Premier League
Let’s look at Thibaut Courtois’ ranking in each of those Premier League seasons.
2014/15
A good debut season for Courtois, surprisingly bettered by Fabianski and his fellow Belgian Mignolet.
2015/16
Thibaut disappears from the top ten in this season.
2016/17
Chelsea’s title-winning season and Courtois is back to second best in the Premier League.
2017/18
Courtois ends up 5th in a season where Chelsea struggle.
What does this tell us?
It tells us that Courtois is actually quite inconsistent over the course of his Premier League career.
If we are generous and say that his Squawka score on the season where he finished outside of the top ten is one point less than the keeper in tenth place, Tim Howard, so 188, that would give Courtois an average score of 419.5 over his time in the Premier League.
That would place him 4th on the table over that timespan.
Who is better?
Hugo Lloris has the highest average score of 586.3
Former Chelsea stopper Petr Cech had an average score of 523
New West Ham United keeper Lukas Fabianski has an average score of 439.7
However, Courtois has finished higher than ‘the best keeper in the World’ and longtime Real Madrid target David De Gea who has registered an average score of 373.8
Should Chelsea sell?
Based on the evidence above, if Real Madrid are prepared to part with the best part of €100m for Thibaut Courtois and Chelsea are confident they have a quality replacement, if even a short-term option, ready waiting in the wings then Chelsea have to take the money.
This would represent a near €90m profit on a player who has given them seven seasons of contracted service (and I would imagine they probably covered a lot of the initial €9m outlay with loan fees from Atletico).
There are many very talented goalkeepers looking to make their next step to an elite club and for less than they will receive for Courtois, Chelsea can replace well and still be in profit.
