All Whites star Reid secures loan deal in MLS
All Whites veteran Winston Reid has joined Major League Soccer outfit Sporting Kansas City on loan from English club West Ham United.
The defender’s move from the English Premier League to the United States should allow him to play his first competitive club football match in two years when the new MLS season gets under way later this month.
Reid had been out of action for more than 18 months after suffering a serious knee injury playing for West Ham against Swansea City in March 2018.
His recovery was interrupted by a series of setbacks, but he took to the field in a competitive match last November, as the All Whites took on the Republic of Ireland in Dublin.
Reid captained the side on that occasion and played the first half, but has not featured for West Ham in the three months since, despite being included in a handful of matchday squads.
West Ham coach David Moyes said last month that Reid would be heading to MLS on loan in search of playing time.
He was linked to Nashville and Kansas City, and was reported to be on the verge of joining the former club earlier this month, but has wound up in the state of Kansas rather than Tennessee.
Reid becomes the seventh All White on the books of a MLS club for the coming season, joining fellow centre backs Michael Boxall (Minnesota United) and Bill Tuiloma (Portland Timbers), fullbacks Noah Billingsley (Minnesota) and Deklan Wynne (Colorado Rapids), midfielder James Musa (Minnesota), and forward Elliot Collier (Chicago Fire). An eighth Kiwi, Kyle Adams, is at Houston Dynamo.
He arrives in the US having made more than 200 appearances for West Ham, who he joined following the 2010 World Cup, including 166 in the Premier League.
He is contracted until the end of the 2022-23 season.
Reid has earned 25 All Whites caps, having made his debut in early 2010 ahead of the World Cup.
His move to the US – and the prospect of regular playing time – will be music to All Whites coach Danny Hay’s ears, as he prepares for a pair of fixtures in the March international window, away against Oman and Bahrain.
It does throw up a potential complication, however, as Kansas City have a fixture scheduled for the middle of that window, which Reid would have to miss to link up with the national team.