West Brom goalkeeper Alex Palmer has revealed that he turned down the opportunity to complete a transfer to Luton Town
Alex Palmer has explained why he decided against joining Luton Town earlier this summer and has expressed his desire to play in the Premier League wearing a West Bromwich Albion top. Goalkeeper Palmer, who turned in an impressive performance in Friday night’s 1-1 draw at Leeds United, was the subject of an offer from Luton – one of his former loan clubs – shortly before the commencing of the new Championship season.
Albion are in a position this summer whereby funds must be raised from player sales, and they’ve already had to part with one academy product in captain Dara O’Shea, who left for Burnley, but Palmer – who made himself the club’s number one midway through last season after years of hard work and patience – is in no rush to leave The Hawthorns having finally established himself as the Baggies primary gloveman.
Indeed Palmer’s ‘ultimate dream’ is to play in the top flight, but with Albion, who have developed his skills and, finally, have been able to offer him a platform to perform as the club’s number one after almost a decade of waiting behind the likes of Ben Foster and Sam Johnstone.
“Every player wants to play in the Premier League, but for me it just wasn’t right,” he said after the draw at Elland Road. “Being so long here and to achieve being number one now, it’s something that was too soon to leave, I want to achieve promotion and get us back to the Premier League, that’s my ultimate dream, to achieve that with West Brom.
“It’s one of those ones, I’ve just got to make sure it’s not the last opportunity I get, I’ve got to keep working hard and ultimate aim is to play in the Premier League, ideally with West Bromwich Albion. It’s nice to be recognised, but it’s down to a lot of people behind the scenes, especially those I came up with.”
Palmer has experienced a range of loan spells away from Albion since making his breakthrough into the first-team set-up in 2015, but his more notable periods away from The Hawthorns included his League Two promotion-winning stint at Plymouth Argyle and then, a year later, testing himself in League One under Michael Appleton at Lincoln City.
Palmer then joined the Hatters on an emergency Championship loan in March 2022 before returning and displacing David Button as the club’s first choice stopper under Steve Bruce in October of the same year. To date, he’s played 29 first-team matches for Albion.
