Darren Randolph admitted he ‘had to get out’ of West Ham United

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West Ham have been linked with Middlesbrough goalkeeper Darren Randolph.

West Ham United have endured a difficult season between the sticks – and that may lead them to try and re-sign a former Hammer.

The Hammers saw Luksaz Fabianski suffer a hip injury in September, which meant Roberto Jimenez had to step up following his summer move from Espanyol.

Roberto was found to be way short of Premier League quality, and third-choice David Martin has been forced into the side as a result of the Spaniard’s struggles.

Fabianski should be back soon, but West Ham may still want a new backup goalkeeper, and 90Min report that talk have started about a move for Middlesbrough stopper Darren Randolph.

West Ham sold Randolph to Middlesbrough in 2017 after two years at the London Stadium, but could now try to bring the 32-year-old back to East London.

Having established himself as one of the top goalkeepers in the Championship and as Ireland’s first-choice stopper, it would be something of a surprise to see Randolph go back to being a backup.

In fact, if you go back to Randolph’s comments after leaving West Ham, it seems that he was very unhappy with the club and couldn’t wait to leave.

Randolph admitted to the Irish Independent that he ‘had to get out’ of West Ham after hearing Joe Hart was coming in, claiming that he was in a race with Adrian to leave the club, because West Ham wouldn’t sell both.

“I wanted to be playing games so I had to get out. I couldn’t expect to keep playing (for Ireland) if I’m not playing at club level, so that was definitely a factor,” said Randolph. “I heard about Joe Hart coming in at the end of last season. I went away on holiday and then came back to Ireland for the Austria game.”

“It was clear he was going to sign and that there was a race to see who could try and get out of the door first. I just think with the situation we were in, they weren’t going to let both of us go. They would have had to keep one and then let one go,” he added.

Randolph understood that he needed to play regularly for his club to keep his place with Ireland, so seeing him head back to the West Ham bench would be a huge surprise, especially as there is little chance of him displacing Fabianski any time soon.