I'd never seen him play when we signed him. I don't think there was ever any guarantee of his future success as such, albeit plenty of hope and hype. There's been loads of players tipped for stardom at that age who don't fulfil their potential.

My original point was, when he joined, Courtois was not ready to be our keeper ahead of Cech, so the club sent him on loan to learn the game at a high level and perfect his trade elsewhere and he excelled. Unless someone is exceptional then they're not going to get the chance to make mistakes on our watch at that age; they can fine tune their game elsewhere and hopefully return when they're more rounded. If they don't show enough to suggest they can play regularly for us, they will at least have had the opportunity to play first team football regularly, to learn the game, to put themselves in the shop window and also make money for the club.