Valencia have announced the signing of Iago Herrerin on a free transfer as he was a free agent following the long term injury to Jaume Domenech, who is expected to be out until around March.
Herrerin is a Bilbao youth product who broke through into the first team but was mostly back-up to Kepa. He played most games in the 2018-19 season before being displaced the following season by Unai Simon. Loan spells followed before he spent last season at Al Raed in Saudi Arabia. He joins us after a successful trial with a contract till the end of the season with an option to renew for a further season.
I see some fans on social media criticising this. What's wrong with Mamardashvili and Rivero, they say? Definitely nothing in the case of Mamardashvili, but Rivero is untested in La Liga, whereas Herrerin has La Liga, Copa and European experience. It wouldn't be the first time both keepers got injured at the same time (happened last season and at the start of Nuno's 2nd season) so having an extra experienced option as cover makes perfect sense and there were few other free agents with La Liga experience available. It remains to be seen how much he'll play, Valencia is in the super cup this season, so unlike the previous two seasons, we start in Copa del Rey at round of 32 instead of round of 128, skipping two games against 3rd or 4th level sides.