AFC Bournemouth have opened talks with Newcastle and reserve-keeper Karl Darlow to sign the goalie from Newcastle ahead of next season, according to Mike McGrath of The Telegraph.
New head coach Andoni Iraola has greenlighted the move for Bournemouth and the side will try to sign the ostracized goalie from NUFC in the next few days, with talks already ongoing between both clubs, according to sources feeding information to McGrath.
Already 32 years old, Darlow doesn’t feature on Eddie Howe’s plan for the 2023/24 season with Nick Pope as the clear GK1 followed by Loris Karius in the pecking order as the GK2.
After spending five seasons playing for Newcastle between 2015 and 2022, Darlow was sent on loan to Hull City last year where he logged 12 starts for the Championship side on their way to a 15th-place finish in the English second tier.
The English men’s national team should have already been qualified for the 2002 World Cup. But as they’d previously been known to do, they made things just a bit harder on themselves. David Beckham had a 93′ chance to draw against Greece.
According to McGrath, Leeds United also showed interest in the goalkeeper but it looks like Bournemouth will be his next stop in a career that started back in 2010 for Darlow when he debuted as a pro at Nottingham Forest in the Championship at the ripe age of 19.
Darlow will have to fight Neto for the coveted GK1 position under the posts of Bournemouth, but with Iraola arriving ahead of next season and picking the Newcastle goalie as a transfer target on short notice it would make sense for Darlow to enter the race on a leading position over Neto.
Newcastle have Darlow under contract for two more seasons, but the fee to be paid by AFC is not expected to be humongous—reasonably.
We wish Darlow all of the luck in his new adventure with Bournemouth next season as he will try to help AFC back to another respectable finish in the Premier League following the club’s 15th-place finish in the English top-flight division last campaign.
