Crystal Palace complete the signing of goalkeeper Lucas Perri

Crystal Palace have confirmed the signing of Lucas Perri from Sao Paolo on a short-term loan for the season. The 21-year-old becomes the fourth goalkeeper with the Eagles’ first-team squad but he is expected to compete with Julian Speroni for the number one role, given Wayne Hennessey and Vicente Guaita are currently in the treatment room.

“It’s an amazing feeling, I’m really glad to join the club,” he told the club’s website shortly after the move. “Two months ago, I knew [about] the possibility to join Palace. Since then, I was pretty anxious to be here because I really wanted that. It’s huge, it’s a really important thing to me. It’s the opportunity of my life and I’m going to do whatever it takes.”

The south London outfit have recently witnessed a goalkeeping crisis with both Hennessey and Guaita on the sidelines. Due to this, Julian Speroni was recently tasked with the number one role for the Premier League clash at Liverpool but his performance was far from impressive with a blunder contributing towards the 4-3 defeat for the Eagles.

With relatively no Premier League experience, Perri may not directly feature between the sticks for the Eagles but he could be drafted into the lineup, should Speroni come up with another confidence-wrecking performance. Palace have been stranded in the bottom half of the table for much of the season but they are still holding a three-point advantage over the drop zone.

Their struggles during the current campaign have largely resulted from the ineffectiveness in the frontline but there has been an improvement on the same with three goals scored against both Liverpool and Manchester City over the past month. Palace are scheduled for FA Cup action this weekend with Tottenham Hotspur making the south London trip for the fourth round.