Saints seem set to sign on loan keeper Maarten Stekelenburg on a permanent deal once his season long loan from Fulham ends in the next weeks.

Maarten Stekelenburg seems set to join Saints on a permanent deal according to latest media reports.

The Sun is reporting that Saints will look to sign the Dutch keeper as back up to Fraser Forster for next season, Stekelenburg has one more year of his contract at Fulham left and is believed to be on a fairly high salary that the London club can ill afford to pay.

That could mean that Saints would pay no or a fairly low fee for his services with the Sun suggesting that it could be around £2 million, an amount that has Fulham fans on the net rubbing their hands with glee.

With Kelvin Davis retiring that would leave only Paulo Gazzaniga as back up to Forster and it seems that Saints will probably look to put Gazzaniga, who himself signed a new deal earlier in this season out on loan to continue to gain experience whilst using Stekelenburg in the back up role he performed in the second half of the season after Forster's return from injury.

Although this is not a signing that will excite Saints fans, Stekelenburg is probably as high a standard of keeper that Saints would be able to get for a role that injuries aside will be purely that of sitting on the bench with the odd Cup game.

In his loan with Saints the Dutch keeper made 17 Premier League appearances for Saints and was a competent if unspectacular glovesman, whilst he seemed to never pull off any really spectacular saves, it as to be said that in the main he did the basics right and didn't make too many errors either.

Photo: Action Images

SonicBoom added 14:13 - May 18 Stekelenburg was a decent back up so that's good. God knows how much experience Gazza needs. The club must see something in him, but it sure is taking a long time to come out.
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GeordieSaint added 14:20 - May 18 That makes a lot of sense. Get Gazza out to the championship and we can see how good he really is without everyone having kittens every time the ball is in our half.
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DPeps added 18:47 - May 18 Ok... as long as he's not on a big wage
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