Crystal Palace have signed a pre-contract agreement to sign Vicente Guaita under the Bosman ruling, with the Spanish goalkeeper to complete his move on 1 July once his contract at Getafe expires.
Roy Hodgson has made no secret of his unease at having only two senior goalkeepers, in Wayne Hennessey and Julián Speroni, and had hoped to add a third in January. However, Getafe resisted attempts to sell their first-choice keeper six months early, including a bid of around £2m on deadline day.
Palace also failed in a late attempt to sign Frederik Rønnow from Brøndby – for the second transfer window in succession after the Danish club attempted to alter the structure of the deal. That transfer could be revisited over the summer as Hodgson reshapes his squad but, regardless, the experienced Guaita will move to Selhurst Park on a free. The 31-year-old began his career at Valencia and has been with Getafe since 2014.
“We have signed a pre-contract with Vicente Guaita so he will join us on 1 July,” Hodgson said. “We would have liked to have tried to persuade the club to sign him in January but they didn’t want to do that, which is their right because his contract with them does not run out until the summer. It is good news that we will have him from 1 July and he will boost our goalkeeping contingent in the way I was hoping it would be boosted.”
Palace have lost their Mali forward Bakary Sako for the remainder of the season after he suffered a fractured ankle and ligament damage in a tackle by Pablo Zabaleta at West Ham on Tuesday. Sako joins Scott Dann, Jason Puncheon, Jeffrey Schlupp, Connor Wickham (all knee ligaments) and Ruben Loftus-Cheek (ankle) on a lengthy injury list.
