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Atletico can't afford Courtois, according to its president

The club have confirmed the obvious, that they'd love to keep Courtois. They're also realistic.

Scott Heavey

Thibaut Courtois is in the news again today, this time because of some comments from Atletico Madrid president Enrique Cerezo. Cerezo was asked about the possibility of adding Courtois on a permanent basis, and responded with the following:

"Courtois is incredible on the pitch. We are interested but the price is too much for a keeper. We want to try to do business, but it depends on Chelsea. We must study everything."

"For me, it is clear that Courtois is the best goalkeeper in Europe."

It's nice to see that Chelsea aren't in any rush to let Courtois leave, and it's also nice to see more comments praising his fantastic performance on loan. Naturally Atletico would be interested in signing the Belgian stopper, as he's the best young keeper on the planet. Also unsurprisingly, Chelsea would be asking the moon to let the player go.

Chelsea have a pair of world class keepers under contract until July 2016, so don't need to be in any rush when coming to a decision. Ideally, the pair will stay and compete in London next season, but if a ridiculous offer came in for either of the keepers, Chelsea would still have one of the world's best between the sticks for the foreseeable future. Again, too much talent is never a problem, as that talent can always be used to upgrade other areas if they aren't going to have a role with the club.

The media isn't going to stop with this story until either Courtois or Petr Cech leave the club, so we might as well just get used to the idea that we'll be reading about potential departures for a while. At least comments like these should help squash the silly idea that any sale will be cheap, or that we'd do something dumb like swap the player and a truckload of cash for Diego Costa.

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