Jose Mourinho is prepared to play hard ball when it comes to the future of Thibaut Courtois and will block Barcelona’s attempt to sign the 21-year-old.
Courtois is regarded as one of the finest young goalkeepers in the world and is already one of the best performers in one of Europe’s top leagues on-loan at Atletico Madrid but there have been question marks over his future at Stamford Bridge.
Spanish publication Marca claim that the main obstacle blocking Courtois from a permanent move to Camp Nou is Mourinho and even go so far to suggest that he’s being a completely miserable git by threatening the player with two years on the bench if he doesn’t sign a new deal with Chelsea as he wants him to succeed Petr Cech.
Cech is the only thing standing in the way of Courtois being an automatic choice at the West London club and although a few mistakes have been creeping into the Czech’s game in the early stages of the season, there’s no reason to believe that he won’t still be one of our top performers by the end of the season when Chelsea are faced with a tough choice.
If Courtois wants to go out on loan again then that’s fine, according to Marca, but Mourinho has made clear that in order to do this he’ll have to sign an extension on his contract to be afforded the luxury of guaranteed football elsewhere which is fair enough in my opinion.
Ideally I’d like to see the two battle it out before Courtois eventually earns the right to be Chelsea’s number one choice between the sticks but it’s unlikely the youngster will want to risk having to spend time on the bench as he has a high profile already and will be more than aware of Barcelona’s interests in him.
Source: Marca
