Thibaut Courtois: Once again while away from Chelsea with Belgium, speculation of his future intensifies.

When there is a break for International Football you can always rely on three things. Firstly speculation regarding the future of Antonio Conte. Secondly, the future of Eden Hazard and like clockwork, thirdly the same of Thibaut Courtois. 

It frustrates the life out of me it really does. It's almost because the press and media in this country have nothing to write about for two weeks while they wait for the Premier League to restart like the rest of us. They can't write much else about England because they've said enough already - crap.

I've already said my bit about Antonio Conte in the past few days here so check that post out also, and there will be more on Eden Hazard later but this post refers specifically regarding Thibaut Courtois and his future.

Whenever the Belgium squad get together for whatever game the subject of his future appears in the press firstly from their local reporters, translated into English and it then hits our papers and websites almost instantly. It's the same crap over and over again and if anything, you could bet your mortgage on it happening during the next set of international games!

Once again in recent days we are having to read the fact that Thibaut Courtois wants to stall on signing an extension to his current Chelsea contract because he wants to force a move back to La Liga, not to rejoin Atletico Madrid but to their fierce rivals Real Madrid.

Now it just so happens that Real Madrid have never been able to replace Iker Cassilas at the club since he left for Porto a few years ago and the President has made signing a world class goalkeeper a priority next summer.

As well know David De Gea and Thibaut Courtois, arguably two of the best in the Premier League and in Europe have been linked with moves to Madrid in the past. To this point Manchester United rejected all previous approaches for De Gea to keep the Spaniard at the club but as far as we know Real Madrid have never approached Chelsea. If they did then you would have to wonder what would happen to the 25-year-old Belgian shot stopper and if he does want to move.

Courtois has a daughter with his Spanish girlfriend and there has been opinion stated before that ideally he would want to raise their child in Spain rather than in England which would make sense all things considered, and given the opportunity to return when his contract expires in 2019 you would have to believe that he would be more than interested to speak with Real.

However, Chelsea still view Courtois as their next long term servant in goal following in the footsteps of Petr Cech and seeing what he was able to achieve in over a decade at our club. If Chelsea can continue to be successful under the manager and make a real assault on the Champions League this time around, then who knows what will happen with Courtois. It has been reported that Chelsea are willing to double his current salary to £200,000 per week to stay in West London.

It's a story that will continue to run throughout his time at our football club. Only when the player himself comes out and states that he wants to either return to Spain or to remain in England, will you or I know exactly what is going to happen rather than rely on the speculation that follows him to Belgium.

Article Source: The Mirror.