Kepa Arrizabalaga to reject Bayern Munich, wants Real Madrid — report

One of the more unlikely developments of this already very eventful transfer window has been the sudden interest in Kepa Arrizabalaga from two of the biggest and best teams in the world, with Bayern Munich and Real Madrid registering their interest this week.

Thomas Tuchel’s Bayern don’t have a first-choice goalkeeper at the moment with Manuel Neuer still recovering from a broken leg and Carlo Ancelotti’s Real are in a similar situation after Thibaut Courtois tore his ACL the other day.

Chelsea are said to be open to letting Kepa leave — through presumably only if there is an actual transfer involved in the move, not just the option of one — and Kepa’s said to be open to the same. But while it had looked like that he would be choosing Bayern, it now sounds like he’s ready to choose Real Madrid.

Were that to happen, Kepa would be joining a team he almost joined just before joining Chelsea, only to replace the goalkeeper he replaced at Chelsea. Time is a flat circle.

In his press conference yesterday, Mauricio Pochettino talked of his two goalkeepers as a competition rather than first-choice and second-choice, so we would probably expect Robert Sánchez to take over — and maybe sign yet another option as his backup and challenger.

But first let’s see how the Kepa situation plays out. If all Real (or Bayern) are offering is a loan without the guarantee of a transfer, that isn’t very useful for us.