Arsenal are weighing up a shock move for Sunderland goalkeeper Jordan Pickford.

Standard Sport understands the Gunners have made contact to enquire about the possibility of signing the 22-year-old next month but immediately loaning him back to Sunderland for the rest of the season.

No fee has yet been agreed and the Black Cats have a degree of security in negotiations given Pickford signed a new deal in January and is contracted until the club until 2020.

Sunderland were thought to be ready to offer another pay increase after he was called into the senior England squad for the first time in October but the club are increasingly resigned to losing one of the hottest goalkeeping prospects around.

He won’t be cheap, however, with Tottenham, Manchester City and Everton among a host of clubs to have expressed an interest in Pickford following a series of hugely promising displays in a difficult campaign to date for Sunderland.

David Moyes has been told he will have no funds to strengthen in January and is reluctant to lose Pickford during the season so a deal whereby Sunderland receive a sizeable transfer fee up front but also retain the player until next summer would be an agreeable compromise.

Arsenal’s move is a surprise given manager Arsene Wenger has previously insisted 34-year-old first-choice goalkeeper Petr Cech could play on for several years.

Cech’s form has been questioned of late, however, after last weekend’s 2-1 defeat at Manchester City meant he had failed to keep a clean sheet in eight successive Premier League matches for the first time in his career.

Cech had claimed he was unsighted for Raheem Sterling’s winning goal but there was a rare flash of anger at one of his own players from Wenger when he criticised his goalkeeper for rushing up to the halfway line to take a free-kick short to Mesut Ozil, affording referee Martin Atkinson a chance to blow for full-time.

Wenger has used David Ospina in all six Champions League games this season – he is yet to appear in any other competition – while Wojceich Szczesny is on loan at Roma and Emiliano Martinez only signed a new deal at Emirates Stadium last month.

Ospina is thought to have been open to move away from the club earlier this year but opted to stay. It remains to be seen which goalkeeper would make way should Arsenal complete a deal for Pickford – and more than one may depart – but Szczesny’s future at the club looks bleak upon his return from Roma.

Tottenham are believed to have scouted Pickford on several occasions including during his loan spell at Preston last season. It is thought they were lining up him as a possible replacement for Hugo Lloris in case he left next summer but that seems unlikely now after the France No1 yesterday signed a new deal with Spurs until 2022.

