Sam Johnstone will join Crystal Palace after Tottenham Hotspur seemed to pull a U-turn and go for Fraser Forster instead.
Johnstone was always likely to walk away from West Bromwich Albion this summer with his contract coming to an end.
Johnstone more than proved himself in the Premier League during the 2020-21 season and was never likely to be keen on sticking around in the Championship.
West Brom’s poor season only cemented Johnstone’s plans to move on and with his contract running down, the goalkeeper is an attractive free agent.
Sam Johnstone will join Crystal Palace
It looked like Johnstone would be heading to Tottenham on a free transfer this summer.
Tottenham have allowed loanee Pierluigi Gollini to go back to Atalanta and wanted a homegrown goalkeeper to replace him.
Tottenham’s homegrown numbers are far from ideal and bringing in an English goalkeeper to play as backup to Hugo Lloris made perfect sense.
Back in April, it was suggested that Tottenham were confident that Johnstone would be signing.
Football London added in May that Johnstone was all set to sign for Tottenham as a free agent.
However, 90Min claimed that Johnstone actually rejected Tottenham and Spurs quickly turned their attention elsewhere.
Tottenham pivoted to Fraser Forster and have now signed the former Southampton goalkeeper on a free transfer.
A deal looked so close for Johnstone to join Tottenham but that U-turn has put him back on the market.
A number of Premier League clubs have been linked with Johnstone but it now seems that Crystal Palace will win the race.
The Athletic report that Johnstone has now agreed a four-year deal with Palace and will join the club on July 1st.
Palace allegedly found a breakthrough in talks with Johnstone last week and they are now on the verge of signing the 29-year-old stopper.
Johnstone has a great shot at becoming Palace’s first-choice goalkeeper and will battle with veteran stopper Vicente Guaita moving forward.
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