Thibaut Courtois or David De Gea: Who will be the first galactico goalkeeper this summer?

Much was made in England last weekend of Sergio Aguero’s imminent skipping off into the sunset after being shunned by Pep Guardiola, and ultimately running into the arms of Real Madrid. It’s a nice narrative but not the one currently running in the Spanish capital.

Aguero’s comments that he might be off in the summer made a couple of paragraphs on page 22 of Marca. Rightly or wrongly he no longer rocks too many Madrid supporters’ boats. It was a different story on Thursday when David de Gea was front page news.

Real Madrid want a goalkeeper, a galatico goalkeeper, their first galatico goalkeeper. And he will almost definitely come from the Premier League, be a former Atletico Madrid player, and be represented by Jorge Mendes.

More of the De Gea – Thibaut Courtois conundrum later. First the shock that they finally plan to spend big on a position that was for so many years filled by a homegrown player or a relatively cheap signing.

It was going to happen eventually – they have been behaving sensibly in the transfer market for the last couple of years now. Gone are the days when president Florentino Perez would wait for a player to win the Ballon d’Or and then buy him; the club now buy players young enough to be able to grow into award winners – Marco Asensio is a case in point.

They also spend on hard-working players who will help them over the line in a title race as Casemiro is doing. Madrid managers no longer get to complain, as Carlos Queiroz did in 2003, that he had a squad full of concert pianists and no one to lift the piano.

And when there is nothing worth buying, Real Madrid have learned how to do what is sometimes the most difficult thing: nothing. Last summer, save the repatriation of Alvaro Morata from Juventus, they sat on their hands for the most part, and spent so little that they actually made a transfer profit for the first time since colour television.

This summer they are unlikely to throw their riches at Aguero. They might be tempted by the younger Paulo Dybala, and they need to buy a left-back so they can finally find a new home for Fabio Coentrao, whose appearances in the starting line-up for Madrid are so few and far between his team-mates now look at him the way Roy Keane once looked at Karl Power.

But, the priority over and above all of that is a new number one.

De Gea remains Perez’s top target – mainly so that he can puff his chest out and say: ‘see, I got my man in the end’. There is still bad feeling over the 2015 fiasco when De Gea appeared to be on his way to Madrid with Keylor Navas flying in the opposite direction to Old Trafford.

De Gea still blames Real Madrid for dragging their feet on deadline day. And Real Madrid and United blame each other, not just for the failure to get the player registered on UEFA’s Transfer Management System, but for the way they publicly blamed each other afterwards.

Perez has vowed that there will be no repeat of that embarrassing fiasco. And that may mean that if once again De Gea does not end up as Real Madrid’s keeper, Courtois will. He wants to return to the Spanish capital, where he performed so well at Atletico Madrid on loan from Chelsea, and Chelsea will sell if the price is right because they know the Belgian keeper’s deal runs out in 2019 and he has no intention of extending it.

Courtois’ girlfriend Marta Hernandez is from Tenerife and the couple want to bring up their daughter Adriana, who will be two years old in May, in Spain so there are family reasons behind the decision.

In short, if De Gea flings himself at Real Madrid, forgiving Perez for leaving him high and dry in 2015, and Real Madrid stump up close to €60m (£51m), then the 26-year-old United keeper will join the rivals of his former club Atletico Madrid. That is not seen as a problem by the way – it’s only Fernando Torres whose affection for ‘Atleti’ extends to him vowing never to play for their neighbours.

And if not? Well, then Courtois can take the gloves from Keylor Navas. The Costa Rican played above himself last season but has conceded 22 goals in 20 games this time around and looks still to be struggling for sharpness after an operation on his Achilles in the summer.

Real Madrid need a keeper and they are going to buy one. There is veteran apparently playing very well in Portugal at the moment but Madrid say they are not interested, they only have eyes for Courtois and De Gea.