Soccer: Westerveld tightens grip on goal spot

Liverpool goalkeeper Sander Westerveld insists he will stay and fight for his place even if reports linking Polish international Jerzy Dudek with a move to Anfield prove to be correct.

Reds boss Gerard Houllier is reportedly in the market for a new goalkeeper, and Westerveld hardly helped his own cause by allowing Dean Holdsworth’s long-range shot to slip through his grasp as Bolton upset Liverpool 2-1 on Monday night.

But Westerveld, speaking from Holland’s training camp in the build-up to Saturday’s crucial World Cup qualifier against the Republic of Ireland, said:

‘‘There have probably been 26 goalkeepers linked with a move to Liverpool in the past two years, and I am still number one. Nothing will change that.

‘‘Feyenoord offered Dudek to Liverpool in the summer too, and then I went to Houllier to ask him about that.

‘‘He said that there would not be a new goalkeeper. That made me happy.’’

Westerveld said of his mistake at the Reebok Stadium: ‘‘It is not nice that I make a blunder like that when everybody is talking about Dudek, but things like that just happen.

‘‘How bad it might look, I am not scared of losing my spot in the team.’’