Interesting news out of Belgium, where de Standaard is reporting that RC Genk has reached an agreement with Chelsea over the transfer of 19-year-old goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, who's been mentioned in conjunction with the Blues a few times already. According to said reports, Chelsea will pay up to €6M for the pleasure of Courtois' registration, and he'll be immediately loaned back to Genk for a season before moving to Stamford Bridge for 2012/13.
His agent, who's also his father (most outlets seem to get this backwards in terms of importance to the reader), has said that all that is left to be agreed is personal terms with the club. Courtois is expected to sign a four or five year deal with Chelsea, but it'd be a big surprise if he manages to push Petr Cech out of the lineup before 2015. We'll just have to wait and see, though. At least we won't be getting any more rumours linking us with Stoke City's Asmir Begovic. Genk is expecting to learn whether or not their prize teenager has agreed a switch by next Friday.
The €6M seems a little pricy to me, but I wonder if some of that is immediately recouped via the loan fee. I'd also guess that Courtois would have significant sell-on value should he fail to establish himself (or fail to look close to establishing himself, I guess) in the Chelsea first team. And, of course, that €6M also might include a series of add-ons. At this point, we don't really know, but this transfer looks like a fairly risk-free gamble that could see Chelsea acquire their next great keeper.