Arsenal watching 17-year-old goalkeeper van der Laan | OneFootball

Arsenal and Liverpool are watching 17-year-old Portuguese league goalkeeper Ricardo van der Laan of Belenenses SAD for a potential summer move.

O Jogo report that both Arsenal and Liverpool are eyeing a move for Ricardo van der Laan this summer. The player only has one year left on his contract and they both see him as a promising young option to reinforce their youth teams.

At the moment, Arsenal have Bernd Leno and Emi Martinez in the first team, with Matt Macey behind. Dejan Iliev is also an option for the senior side after he spent the campaign on loan. But you can’t see Macey and Iliev sticking around much longer.

After a number of loan spells and time spent playing third-choice goalkeeper, both really need to take another step in their career. Neither have long contracts at Arsenal anyway.

That’s inevitably going to lead to a gap to be filled with a new signing or a player promoted from the youth teams.

Arsenal do have plenty of goalkeeping options in their youth ranks already, with Arthur Okonkwo, James Hillson, Karl Hein and Tom Smith. But if they have the chance to snap up a promising teenager for a cheap price you’d still expect them to go for it.