The Blues are preparing to switch goalkeepers on transfer deadline day, as their current number one aims to force a move to Real Madrid <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Chelsea are prepared to trigger\u00a0Kepa Arrizabalaga’s \u20ac80 million (\u00a371m\/$92m) release clause, with Thibaut Courtois looking to force a move to Real Madrid, Goal <\/strong> understands.<\/p>\n Athletic made it clear that they would not accept any bids for Kepa, meaning that the Blues must\u00a0meet a price tag in his contract in order\u00a0to proceed.<\/p>\n It is believed that Chelsea have now agreed to pay the fees required to secure the goalkeeper.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The move would break the club’s transfer record, set last season when Chelsea signed Alvaro Morata in an initial \u00a358m ($75m) deal, potentially rising to \u00a370m ($90m), from Real Madrid.<\/p>\n It would also make Kepa the world’s most expensive goalkeeper, less than a month after Alisson\u00a0secured that title with a \u00a365m\u00a0(\u20ac73m\/$85m) move from Roma to Liverpool.\u00a0<\/p>\n Chelsea have\u00a0formalised\u00a0their interest\u00a0as they negotiate the exit of\u00a0Courtois\u00a0from the club.\u00a0Goal<\/strong>\u00a0understands that\u00a0Kepa’s\u00a0representatives are now in talks with the Blues regarding personal terms.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Courtois has failed to show up for the first two days of training after the World Cup, despite being scheduled to return on Monday for medical tests ahead of the new season.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Real Madrid are keen to secure Courtois in a \u20ac35m deal (\u00a331m\/$40m), meaning Chelsea will have to find the extra funds needed to sign Kepa from Athletic.<\/p>\n Los Blancos have not yet made a breakthrough in their pursuit of the Belgium international, with Chelsea waiting to have their replacement lined up before sanctioning the deal.<\/p>\n Indeed, the Blues are faced with spending more than they had previously planned to, after missing out on\u00a0Alisson, who was their first-choice target.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Blues are preparing to switch goalkeepers on transfer deadline day, as their current number one aims to force a move to Real Madrid Chelsea are prepared to trigger\u00a0Kepa Arrizabalaga’s \u20ac80 million (\u00a371m\/$92m) release clause, with Thibaut Courtois looking to force a move to Real Madrid, Goal understands. Athletic made it clear that they would…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}