West Ham goalkeeper Roberto is on the verge of completing a move to Real Valladolid in Spain as his nightmare spell in east London looks to be over.
Football.London understands that the keeper flew out to Spain on Thursday morning to complete his return to La Liga having spent the second half of last season on-loan at Alaves.
Roberto was on the bench for West Ham’s pre-season friendly victory over Ipswich Town on Tuesday but didn’t get any game time as Darren Randolph played the full 90 minutes in Suffolk.
Roberto joined West Ham on a free transfer in the summer of 2019 as a backup to Lukasz Fabianski but showed in pre-season when Fabianski was rested that he might not have been up to the task for the Premier League.
Fabianski’s hip injury he sustained in September last year against Bournemouth saw Roberto replace him between the sticks and the Hammers went on a truly dire run as they picked up just one point in the six games the Spaniard started in goal. In eight outings for the Hammers, he shipped 17 goals.
He also produced a string of errors in games against Everton, Newcastle and Burnley and his defenders quickly lost confidence in him. Manuel Pellegrini eventually dropped him for David Martin, who kept a memorable clean sheet on debut against Chelsea in a 1-0 victory at Stamford Bridge.
Pellegrini’s persistence with Roberto prior to that arguably cost him his job in east London as the Hammers went on a run of two wins in 12 games that saw them slide into the relegation zone before Pellegrini was ditched in December.
David Moyes replaced him and one of his first moves was to send Roberto on loan to Alaves where the Hammers paid 75 per cent of his wages while he was in Spain. He played eight times for Alaves and kept two clean sheets.
Moyes brought in Darren Randolph to act as backup to Fabianski in January as he sent Roberto out of the club to effectively bring his career in east London to an end, with Martin acting as the third choice keeper for the first team.
Roberto will be the third exit from east London this summer as Moyes reshapes his squad, following strikers Albian Ajeti and Jordan Hugill in exiting the club.
