TOTTENHAM HAVE HELD POSITIVE TALKS WITH GOALKEEPER OVER EXTENDING HIS CONTRACT WITH THE CLUB

Tottenham Hotspur are in talks with goalkeeper Brandon Austin over a contract extension, football.london understands.

The 25-year-old has stepped up in recent months in the absence of the experienced Fraser Forster, who has fractured his foot, to provide the main back-up to Guglielmo Vicario at Spurs. Austin has been named on the bench by Ange Postecoglou in the Premier League 12 times this season, which follows on from the previous campaign when he was on there 21 times for the first team, with Hugo Lloris struggling with injuries in the second half of the campaign.

The former England U21 international is out of contract this summer but football.london understands the north London club are in talks over an extension to his deal with both parties happy to extend his stay and with his progress behind the scenes.

Tottenham also have an issue with a lack of club-trained homegrown players should they qualify for European football next season and Austin, who came through the club's academy, will count towards that low number.

Spurs need four club-trained senior players to register in European competition and currently only have three senior first team players at the club who qualify in Austin, Alfie Whiteman and Oliver Skipp, who has been linked with a move away this summer in search of regular football.

The on-loan Japhet Tanganga and Troy Parrott also both count but their futures at Tottenham remain unclear. The only other way for Spurs to fill those spots in the European squad list would be to promote an U21 academy player, but they are already eligible on the B list, thus meaning one less senior player in the squad.

Austin has been a regular member of the first team squad under recent Tottenham managers and appeared on the bench for the first time in a competitive game for the 1-1 home draw with Watford in the Premier League in October 2019.

He has been out on two loan spells, joining Danish side Viborg FF on loan for half a season in 2020, where he made 14 senior appearances. The following year, he went to the USA to link up with Orlando City on loan, making five appearances. Austin will be hoping at some point to make his debut for Tottenham after all these years at the club.

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2024-04-19T16:00:52Z dg43tfdfdgfd