Slaven Bilic has issued an update on the possible swap deal involving Adrian and Karl Darlow.
According to a report on Football London the West Ham boss needs to keep an experienced keeper as back up to Joe Hart although that role could be filled by Karl Darlow.
With Newcastle’s interest fairly obvious Adrian is faced with the choice of staying at the London Stadium as back up to Hart or a move to Newcastle where he’ll have a better chance of first team football in competition with Rob Elliot.
Bilic said: “I spoke with Randolph and Adrian and we were more than happy with them. We wanted to keep one of them to have three keepers. It was not necessary to sell either of them. Nobody wants to be third choice, of course.
“Now that Randy went to Middlesbrough, it’s Joe and Adrian and the situation with Adrian is that we would love to keep him. We rate him, we like him, we would like to offer him a new contract and hopefully he is going to accept it and stay.”
Newcastle have been hunting for a goalkeeper from the moment that promotion was clinched with Hart, ironically, one of the targets.
Moves for Willie Caballero and Pepe Reina have fallen through for various reasons leaving Rafa Benitez to search for other options.
Despite playing a lead role in last season’s promotion winning campaign Darlow is surplus to requirements with Newcastle also looking to move Tim Krul on.
