Cardiff City are reportedly interested in Newcastle United‘s 19-year-old goalkeeper Paul Woolston. The custodian impressed during his trials held recently with the Bluebirds. He is a promising talent in English football but is reportedly going to be released by the Magpies this summer.
The player has played for the national team in the under-17 and the under-18 setup and has received high praise from his mentors. He is supposedly being chased by a host of clubs from Spain and second-tier clubs from England. The player is now a part of the first-team set-up in Newcastle United despite the Toons having multiple custodians in place.
The player has excellent experience for someone of his age as he has already played first team football while out on loan at Darlington, Blyth Spartans and South Shields. However, Newcastle already have an excellent keeper in Martin Dubravka. The player is currently on loan from Sparta Prague at Newcastle but his contract is set to be made permanent this summer.
Newcastle also have multiple backup options in Rob Elliot, Karl Darlow, Matz Sels and Freddie Woodman and hence are unlikely to give Woolston the first-team chance any time soon. However, Rafa Benitez has spoken highly of the youngster. “He’s a good keeper.”, said Benitez.
“He’s quite good with his feet. I think he’s keen to learn. He’s been good with us in every training session.”
With Woolston’s future at Newcastle looking grey, it is being reported that Cardiff City may be the favourites to land the youngster. They have two senior goalkeepers in the current squad; Neil Etheridge and Brian Murphy. Etheridge has been the first-team choice, playing 45 of the 46 games in the league and keeping 19 clean sheets in the process. The player is only 28 years old and has a long time ahead of him at Cardiff to play as a first team custodian.
His backup Murphy is, however, 35 years old and has played only one league game this season. He is reaching the dusk of his career and Cardiff boss Warnock will want a replacement and a better backup for Etheridge. This would make Woolston a perfect replacement. The youngster is only 19 years old and has a lot of time ahead of him to develop into a star.
He can make the perfect climb at Cardiff where he might get decent game time as the first choice backup and it might be a very good move for the youngster to make a move out of St. James Park in the near future.
