Latest reports claim that Chelsea are still in the hunt for Stoke City goalkeeper, Jack Butland along with West Ham United. The 25-year-old Englishman has been at the heart of summer transfer talks, ever since his side went down to the EFL Championship through relegation.
Butland has quite deservedly earned the praises and the rising interest from some of the top-flight teams after his impressive bouts for the Potters. The 6 feet 4 inch-man stood out from the rest of his teammates by registering 5 clean sheets in 33 total appearances last term – impressive when you have the worst defence in the entire league.
Butland has worked his way up to the senior team to move past the rotational role, behind Asmir Begovic. He is a cemented starter in the Potters first team and has 87 games worth of total top-flight experience, recording 22 clean sheets in total.
He has also been capped 7 times for the England national team and 52 times for the youth sides. Everton’s Jordan Pickford is expected to provide a serious fight for the number 1 spot in Russia for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
For the time being Butland still has a fighting chance against the Toffees’ number one. But in the future, those chances might get significantly reduced if he stops playing in one of the Premier League’s top-flight clubs. Stoke have set up an asking price of £30m which would make him the most expensive English keeper in the history of the game, the record currently held by Pickford.
Chelsea has deep enough pockets to splash that amount but only if they are forced to sell off their current number one, Thibaut Courtois. The Belgian has held out on signing a contract extension with his current deal set to expire after the 2018/19 season.
He previously expressed interest in returning to Madrid and might just be waiting out the summer window for an official approach from the Galacticos. He was quoted, “Like I said in the last weeks or months, I think we’ll see after the World Cup whether I am a Chelsea player for next year. We’ll see what is going to happen after the World Cup.”
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Courtois also has his fair share of doubts about his Chelsea future after watching his team drop out of the UEFA Champions League last term. It remains to be seen what happens in this transfer saga as Butland’s arrival to the Stamford Bridge might completely depend on that of Courtois’ probable exit for Spain.
