{"id":174238,"date":"2018-07-04T04:19:15","date_gmt":"2018-07-04T08:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonfootball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=174238"},"modified":"2020-12-21T19:30:42","modified_gmt":"2020-12-22T00:30:42","slug":"west-brom-sign-goalkeeper-sam-johnstone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2018\/07\/04\/west-brom-sign-goalkeeper-sam-johnstone\/","title":{"rendered":"West Brom Sign Goalkeeper Sam Johnstone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Darren Moore has completed his first signing as <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonfootball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/clubs\/west-brom\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">West Brom<\/a> head coach with goalkeeper Sam Johnstone joining from <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonfootball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/feeds\/manchesterunitedfootball-co\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Manchester United<\/a>.\u00a0It\u2019s thought a \u00a36.5 million fee has been agreed with his\u00a0arrival likely to trigger the shock departure of Ben Foster, Albion\u2019s undisputed number one for the past eight seasons.<\/p>\n<h1>West Brom Sign Sam Johnstone<\/h1>\n<p>Sam Johnstone arrives at West Brom from Premier League side Manchester United but spent last season on loan at Aston Villa. Johnstone helped Villa to a fairly successful Championship campaign where they reached the play-off final before losing to Fulham.<\/p>\n<p>Johnstone established himself as Villa\u2019s first choice keeper last season, making 45 league appearances. During his time on loan at the Midlands club, he kept more clean sheets in the Championship than any other goalkeeper.<\/p>\n<p>Villa were keen on keeping the 25-year-old themselves. However, failure to reach the Premier League after their all or nothing attempt has left them <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mirror.co.uk\/sport\/football\/transfer-news\/aston-villa-financial-crisis-bad-12822121\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">unable to raise the funds<\/a>, allowing Midlands rival and recently relegated West Bromwich Albion free to swoop.<\/p>\n<h2>Ben Foster Poised For Exit<\/h2>\n<p>West Brom goalkeeper Ben\u00a0Foster now looks set to make an immediate return to the top flight.\u00a0The 35-year-old is expected to seal a \u00a33 million move to Watford, where he spent two seasons on loan earlier in his career, now that the Johnstone deal is completed.<\/p>\n<p>Foster and team-mate Craig Dawson refused to attend West Brom\u2019s training camp at the Amendoeira Resort in Portugal last week.\u00a0They claimed the board had stopped them from sealing moves to Premier League clubs by demanding exorbitant transfer fees.<\/p>\n<p>West Brom are amongst the favourites with bookmakers to take the top spot in The Championship this season. Signing one of the best goalkeepers in the league last season is a sign of their intent to live up to their billing.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"AArYTQqZQL5RE5wKVQ6JlA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/958964402\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'AArYTQqZQL5RE5wKVQ6JlA',sig:'Ep2f5Y0BqCArZaoBrBvPnjuTkfEUR4b89yh9hbfIfGI=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'958964402',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Darren Moore has completed his first signing as West Brom head coach with goalkeeper Sam Johnstone joining from Manchester United.\u00a0It\u2019s thought a \u00a36.5 million fee has been agreed with his\u00a0arrival likely to trigger the shock departure of Ben Foster, Albion\u2019s undisputed number one for the past eight seasons. West Brom Sign Sam Johnstone Sam Johnstone [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2382,"featured_media":174991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,33,32,30,28],"tags":[177,1297,36,2433,132],"class_list":["post-174238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-west-brom","category-championship","category-league-football","category-news","category-transfers","tag-aston-villa","tag-football-transfer-news","tag-manchester-united","tag-sam-johnstone","tag-west-bromwich-albion"],"modified_by":"Nat Goodlad, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2382"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}