Official: Thibaut Courtois Departs for Real Madrid

[NorwayBlue]

53 minutes ago, Sleeping Dave said:

^Spot on. 

I've said this before and been laughed at. This Belgian contingent they have now are arrogant and spoilt little shits. 

How anyone can like any of them is beyond me. Feel no love for Hazard, Courtois, De Bruyne or Lukaku. Something is seriously off with them all. 

Edit: and don't even get me started on Fellaini and Verthongen! 

I don't really feel Hazard fits in with that group, he seems quite down to earth and likeable to me. For the rest of them though.. Seems like a talented but spoiled generation

[Harvz]

Expected so much of this guy, particularly as he was to/has usurped Cech. At the moment he's not fit to shine Cech's boots. Hoping he does a De Gea and settles into the role, but the signs are not good. By all accounts he brings little to the table personality wise either. Big worry.

[Baloo]

6 minutes ago, Harvz said:

Expected so much of this guy, particularly as he was to/has usurped Cech. At the moment he's not fit to shine Cech's boots. Hoping he does a De Gea and settles into the role, but the signs are not good. By all accounts he brings little to the table personality wise either. Big worry.

He doesn't exactly command his box, real let down, every time someone passes it back to him I **** meself. I think the De Gea situation was different, he's been here long enough now , in my view he's deteriorated. Considering his time at Atletico I expected the finished article to join us.

[Mark Kelly]

I'm biased , I haven't fancied him from day one. Nothing I've seen since has changed my mind.

Has little to do , does it badly.

[Sleeping Dave]

1 hour ago, Harvz said:

Expected so much of this guy, particularly as he was to/has usurped Cech. At the moment he's not fit to shine Cech's boots. Hoping he does a De Gea and settles into the role, but the signs are not good. By all accounts he brings little to the table personality wise either. Big worry.

Yep. Big worry indeed. Selling Cech was another master stroke from the board and owner. 

[xCELERYx]

1 hour ago, Harvz said:

Expected so much of this guy, particularly as he was to/has usurped Cech. At the moment he's not fit to shine Cech's boots. Hoping he does a De Gea and settles into the role, but the signs are not good. By all accounts he brings little to the table personality wise either. Big worry.

Honestly, having seen a number of Arsenal games since Cech left, he's hardly been as commanding as he once was either. He made some sloppy decisions himself in the recent Hull game, including rushing out and giving away a penalty.

[Droy was my hero]

2 minutes ago, zaffo said:

Honestly, having seen a number of Arsenal games since Cech left, he's hardly been as commanding as he once was either. He made some sloppy decisions himself in the recent Hull game, including rushing out and giving away a penalty.

Indeed.  If you win a lot of games by one goal, then every save can be seen as match saving.  If you lose a lot of games, it makes it really hard to be match saving, and incredibly easy to take the blame for an error.

I was against buying Courtois from the start - it was a very high price for guesswork.  But once he started to play for us I accepted he was as good as Cech, and that we couldn't keep both.  Certainly won't blame the board for letting Cech go.  (Besides everyone else reckons we should have cleared out that CL winning team nowadays)

[Zoowraa]

I can't quite take to his personality, but I think we are a little harsh on him too.

I think it's just the nature of the beast with goalkeepers. With exception of De Gea, there was no better keeper last season than Adrian at West Ham. Yet he looks all over the place at present as has made some bad errors.

They go through good/bad spells like outfield players, but their bad spell leads to goals more often than not.

His save from Origi header was a fantastic save low down at pace. I just think he has gone from three years where everything was rosy and he was brilliant in strong teams, to overnight we became porous and suddenly he had far more pressure on him. The lad is still very young and I'm sure he will recover and get over this. We need a run of clean sheets to install a bit of confidence back. 

[Bob Singleton]

To be honest, I'm not sure he did much wrong on Friday. Both Liverpool goals were down to errors made by those ahead of him, and I'm not sure any keeper would have kept them out. Does he make mistakes? Yes! Are there any error-free keepers? No! Cech hasn't exactly been at the top of his game at Arsenal, either, and he had a few wobbly moments with us too.

I suppose for some here, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. We have a crap keeper while giving away a legend. We complain that our board are useless whilst saying the Man Utd board back their manager... well José has just lost his 3rd game in 9 days.

[Holymoly]

I think it's chicken and egg. If we had a strong back four his form would improve. Likewise if he was more imposing our back four would probably tighten up also.