Courtois replacements for Chelsea – will Sarri have to settle for his realistic option?

Thibaut Courtois is closing in on a transfer to Real Madrid, leaving Chelsea without a top-class goalkeeper.

Courtois has had his eyes on a move back to Spain for a while, and has been talking about potentially running his contract down for the better part of a season if not more. With that move expected to happen soon, the Blues now must face the reality that they need a starting goalkeeper, and they need one soon.

With the Premier League due to start in three weeks, the Blues have to get moving quickly in their search for a stopper; the question is who could they target? There have been murmurings of a return for Petr Cech, but that’s a possibility too dystopian to really consider, so we here at Squawka have come up with a list of four names that could solve Chelsea’s goalkeeping problem:

Dream: Alisson

Alisson is the Brazilian no. 1 and a very, very solid goalkeeper. He’s shown repeatedly that he not only possesses the capacity for growing a delightful beard, but that he can dominate his penalty area and shut down opposing attacks. There’s nothing uniquely special about Alisson (bar the beard), no quirk or trait that makes him stand out as supreme, but he’s just absurdly good across the board.

Alisson would be a slight return to the Petr Cech days at Chelsea. Cech was lacking in an oversized personality or dramatic style; he was just a magnificent goalkeeper. Alisson is much the same and would bring a level of serene calm to the Chelsea defence (he can play from the back and is incredibly cool under pressure) which is exactly what they will need given the pressures of performing in Maurizio Sarri’s system.

This signing is Chelsea’s dream, but it will have to remain that way because reports are emerging that Liverpool have agreed a fee with Roma for Alisson. Now, there’s nothing stopping Chelsea from getting in there at the last minute and outbidding the Reds to sway Alisson to them, that’s how they nabbed Jorginho from Manchester City after all, but they will have to act fast.

Realistic: Kasper Schmeichel

Should they miss out on Alisson, Chelsea will be in the market for a new goalkeeper with no real sellers around. The other elite custodians are all secure at their clubs, so prising them away is unlikely. When that happens, the safest thing to do is to look further down the league and find a player with proven quality to come in and be a safe option.

Kasper Schmeichel is one such player. The Dane doesn’t carry a massive profile but he’s a Premier League title winning goalkeeper and was one of the top five keepers at the World Cup this summer, standing up and performing as Denmark dragged finalists Croatia all the way to a penalty shootout.

Schmeichel wouldn’t be a perfect fit with Maurizio Sarri’s style of play, but he would be a quality goalkeeper who could at the very least make it hard to score against Chelsea. Now, Leicester wouldn’t be keen to offload him, but money talks and ultimately, the Foxes are a selling club.

Wildcard: Keylor Navas

Keylor Navas has won three consecutive Champions League titles since officially becoming Real Madrid’s no. 1 goalkeeper, yet he just found himself getting knocked off the starting spot. Courtois is a bigger personality with a bigger profile and that’s what Real Madrid value, so poor Navas is gonna get run out of town despite making precious little in the way of mistakes over the last few years and producing quite a few miraculous performances to balance those out.

So why don’t Chelsea just make a move for him? With Courtois heading to Madrid, there’s no way Navas will spend a season sitting on the bench. He’s far too good for that. Bringing him to Stamford Bridge, where his lightning quick reflexes and penchant for superheroics in goal could make him an instant folk hero as well as a key presence; Chelsea’s adjustment period to Sarriball could lead to a few defensive errors being made, and Navas’ experience with erratic defending at Madrid, and his ability to bail his team-mates out, will come in handy.

It’s a wildcard though, because Chelsea may not like the optics of signing the man that their departing goalkeeper replaced. Also would Navas be able to adjust to life in England? Probably, but he wouldn’t be a sure thing and Chelsea kind of need a sure thing if they are to retain their place in the top six.

Squawka Suggests: Jasper Cillessen

When Courtois joins Madrid and Alisson joins Liverpool, Chelsea should take a deep breath, calm themselves, and pick up the phone to call Barcelona. Jasper Cillessen is a magnificent goalkeeper, far too good to be a back-up. He’s played two seasons at Barcelona and in the only competition he’s been the regular starter in, the Copa del Rey, he’s collected two consecutive winner’s medals.

He has starter quality, as he shows as the Netherlands’ no. 1; it’s just that Marc-André Ter Stegen is an almost comically perfect goalkeeper for Barcelona. The thing is, Cillessen isn’t far behind the German in terms of his suitability for Barça’s style – and that means he’s also a sublime choice to keep goal for Maurizio Sarri.

For Napoli, Sarri had Pepe Reina in goal. Reina is also ex-Barcelona and excellent with the ball at his feet. A goalkeeper that is able to pass the ball accurately is huge for the way that Sarri’s sides play football, so a goalkeeper out of the Ajax and Barcelona school is exactly what Chelsea need to really thrive. He’s even be cheaper than Alisson; he has a buyout clause of €60m but could probably be signed for less.

Obviously Thibaut Courtois is great, but his suitability to playing behind a high-line is questionable and he’s not the best with his feet either. Cillessen isn’t as good a goalkeeper as Courtois but he is a much better fit with Sarriball, which is almost more important. His reputation isn’t on a par with Alisson’s, but that’s mostly a product of his nationality and the fact that he hasn’t started regularly for two years. His ability could most definitely scale with his role.

The post Courtois replacements for Chelsea – will Sarri have to settle for his realistic option? appeared first on Squawka News.

From Squawka NewsSquawka News https://ift.tt/2JyTVVV