Thibaut Courtois will officially be spending his third season in Spain. Atletico Madrid have announced that they've reached an agreement with Chelsea for the loan of the young goalkeeper, and everyone seems pretty happy about it. Here's Courtois (Google translated):
I am very happy because it's what he wanted.'ve always said that I wanted to continue next season at Atletico and dispute a competition as important as the Champions League qualifying after getting so brilliantly. follow just think about enjoying the amazing fans we have and hopefully we can continue to give a lot of joy.
-Source: Atleti official site.
We knew this was coming, of course -- Courtois said he was going back on loan a couple of weeks ago despite Jose Mourinho hoping he'd spend the season in England -- but hey, confirmation is good. Anyway, there's going to be some mutterings about him not wanting to play for Chelsea as a result of the quotes and that having two top-class goalkeepers is somehow worse situation than having one. If you subscribe to that line of thought, knock yourself out; I'd prefer having more good players than fewer, myself, and Courtois has never been shy about his desire to be the Blues' number one.
The only worry I have is that by the conclusion of the season there'll only be two years left on Courtois' contract, and so unless a contract extension is signed this summer the transfer speculation should start up in earnest. The club knows that, of course, even if it is under the radar as far as the media is concerned, so don't be surprised if news of a new deal for the stopper comes out of nowhere in the next couple of months.
Anyway, good luck to Courtois. Keep kicking La Liga's ass.