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West Ham United are interested in signing Cardiff City goalkeeper Neil Etheridge this summer, per Wales Online.
What’s the word?
Etheridge emerged as an excellent goalkeeper in tough circumstances this season, with Neil Warnock’s men suffering relegation to the Championship.
The 29-year-old played in every single Premier League game in the top-flight, keeping 10 clean sheets and also saving three penalties, the joint-highest in the division, along with Everton’s Jordan Pickford.
Wales Online claim that the Hammers are monitoring the Philippines international, who has won 60 caps for his country.
His current contract does not expire until 2021 and the report claims that Warnock is not exactly desperate to let Etheridge go.
West Ham, of course, raided Swansea City last summer after their relegation, signing Lukasz Fabianski, the goalkeeper who went on to win the club’s Player of the Season award.
A transfer strategy emerges
This makes sense.
It finally appears, after all this time, that the Hammers finally have a salient transfer strategy.
Now, buying players from relegated clubs may seem like something of a risk but it has worked at the very top levels before: one simply needs to look at Liverpool’s signing of Andrew Robertson from Hull City for evidence.
A deal for Etheridge may not pay off quite as well as that one, but West Ham are operating in exactly the right way, and this would be an excellent move to provide some competition to current No.1 Fabianski.