Arsenal & Liverpool Eye Costa Rica Penalty Hero

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Arsenal and Liverpool are set to fight it out for Costa Rica World Cup hero Keylor Navas.

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Just twenty four hours after his World Cup heroics in the penalty shoot-out against Greece, reports from the Mirror are linking Costa Rica goalkeeper Keylor Navas with a move to either Liverpool or Arsenal.

The Levante stopper has followed up a wonderful season in La Liga with a string of impressive displays for his country, topping it off by saving Theofanis Gekas’ penalty to send his nation through to their first ever World Cup quarter final.

The reports suggest that Navas has a buyout clause in his Levante contract of just £6.5 million, a bargain fee based on his performances both for his nation and for the Valencia-based club.

Liverpool and Arsenal are both on the look-out for a new ‘keeper to provide competition for their established first choices, with Liverpool set to allow Pepe Reina to leave the club and Arsenal already having released Lukasz Fabianski, who has joined Swansea City.

Whether Navas would be keen to play second fiddle to either Simon Mignolet or Wojciech Szczesny is another matter entirely – but the performances of neither last season were good enough for their positions not to be under any threat from a goalkeeper with the undoubted class of Navas.

Teammate Celso Borges was gushing in his praise of Navas following the win over Greece, describing his team-mate’s powers as being from another planet:

“He was born on Mars or Venus or something. He’s fantastic.”

With just one year left on Navas’ contract and La Liga champions Atletico Madrid also rumoured to be in the reckoning for Navas, it is unlikely that he will still be at Levante for next season.

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