Real Madrid are going into the 2023/24 season without Thibaut Courtois after the Belgian goalkeeper suffered a tear to the anterior cruciate ligament injury in his left knee.
The club confirmed on Thursday that he will undergo surgery on his knee and while no timeframe has been given for his return, the assumption is that Courtois will now miss effectively the entirety of the 2023/24 campaign.
This creates huge problems for Carlo Ancelotti because he seemingly does not rate backup Andriy Lunin very highly. They will almost certainly need to dip into the transfer market - 90min understands that former Manchester United goalkeeper David de Gea has been contacted, while Sevilla's Yassine Bounou is also on their list.
Courtois has been a mainstay for Real Madrid for a long time now, so let's take a look at how Los Blancos have performed with and without him since he arrived.
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Real's Madrid's win percentage with Thibaut Courtois
Courtois joined Real Madrid in August 2018 from Chelsea for €35m (£30m) and became the first-choice goalkeeper immediately. He made 47 appearances for the club in his first season and neither he or Real Madrid have looked back.
He has won La Liga twice, the Champions League once and the Copa del Rey once. At 31 years old, he still has a few years left as the number one for Real Madrid.
Courtois has played an incredible 251 games for the club across all competitions since he arrived and as you might expect, lots of those games have ended in victory.
To be specific, 148 games have been won with Courtois on the pitch, and only 44 have ended in defeat. There have also been 38 draws, which spits out a win percentage of 64.3%.
That is a really impressive percentage considering how many appearances it factors in, and they have got 2.1 points per game on average with Courtois on the pitch.
Real's Madrid's win percentage without Thibaut Courtois
Generally speaking over his career, Courtois has not struggled too much with injuries. Chelsea got the worst from him fitness-wise as he missed 26 games through injury while in west London.
For Atletico Madrid, he missed just two matches, and so far at Real Madrid across five seasons, he has been absent for only 18 games through injury. Beyond those injuries, there has been the occasional suspension and then a decent chunk of games in the Copa del Rey and the Champions League where the second goalkeeper has been started rather than Courtois.
Overall, Real Madrid have played 48 games without Courtois since he joined the club in 2018, but given it is Real Madrid, they have still been able to get a lot of good results without him.
That does not necessarily reflect badly on Courtois, that is just the quality of the team in general. They have won 29 times without him, drawn eight and lost 11, which does mean that the win percentage drops slightly. It is down to 60.4% without Courtois.
Drawn out over an entire season, Real Madrid are almost certainly going to feel the absence of Courtois unless the replacement manages to play incredibly well.
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This article was originally published on 90min as Real Madrid's win percentage with and without Thibaut Courtois.
