Crystal Palace are reportedly interested in signing Sporting goalkeeper Beto. According to A Bola, the club want to bring the player to London in the January window.
But the transfer wouldn’t be easy. The newspaper claims that Sporting don’t want to let the goalkeeper go.
Besides being the only experienced option after Rui Patrício, Beto also has an important voice in the dressing room and Sporting would like to keep him in the squad.
The 32-year-old has only three appearances this season. Maybe what Crystal Palace could do to convince him, and this is just us speculating, is to offer him some game time. But then that would appear very unlikely given the goalkeepers Alan Pardew has at his disposal.
Despite joining Sporting knowing that Rui Patricio was the number one, Beto may have been led to believe Patricio could be leaving. So maybe Beto signed with the hope of replacing Patricio instead of sitting on the bench.
Beto was a Sporting academy player, then left to make a career at other clubs and signed again this summer, having arrived from Sevilla on a free deal.
Steve Mandanda arrived at Crystal Palace in the summer and the club already had Wayne Hennessey and Julian Speroni. The latter two both have expiring contracts, so a goalkeeper could be on the agenda.
A Bola say they’ve received the information of Palace’s interest, but it can be pretty sure they’ve not received it from the Premier League club. This could be more about Beto’s situation, and contract at Sporting, with the goalkeeper having another season on his contract after the current one.
