Real Madrid keeper Lunin in no man's land

  /  autty

When Real Madrid signed Andriy Lunin last summer, they acquired one of the world's most promising goalkeepers and the strategy was clear: Thibaut Courtois would be the starter in 2018/19 and Lunin, after a season-long loan, would be the Belgian's substitute in 2019/20.

Madrid beat the likes of Manchester City and Manchester United to his signature and Lunin, who had already been capped by Ukraine at the age of 19, would not have expected his first six months in Spain to have gone the way that they have.

He joined Leganes in the hope of gaining some LaLiga Santander experience and the assumption was that he would play ahead of Ivan Cuellar; instead, Lunin was selected as the Copa del Rey goalkeeper and has started just one league match.

In the first round of the Copa del Rey, Lunin was the hero for Leganes as he saved a penalty against Rayo Vallecano, though the goalkeeper now has another problem: Leganes will face Madrid in the next round so he will be unable to play, and it is highly unlikely that Los Pepineros will knock out Los Blancos for the second year in a row.

As a result, unless things change drastically, the Ukrainian will return to Valdebebas without having played a minute in the first half of 2019 and Madrid are frustrated with the situation as he will have played just 94 minutes in LaLiga Santander under Mauricio Pellegrino.

There are now doubts at Madrid about what to do next year as the initial plan was for Lunin to replace Keylor Navas as the understudy to Courtois, but it is a risk to have such an inexperienced goalkeeper on the bench.

Some at the club believe that another loan spell is necessary, to a different club this time, while others think that it is necessary to put more faith in him.

Madrid have until June 30 to decide how to they want to proceed as it is still important that Lunin reaches his potential as he still has a future at the club, but it remains to be seen whether that will be next year or not.

Related: Real Madrid Leganés Navas Courtois Lunin
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