Should Fraser be "rested"?

But if he had stood further to the right, he would have been completely unsighted by the wall, which in any case did not do it's job.

And there was nothing remotely easy about that placement imo. It was a perfect strike.

 

It's time we all got behind Fraser....and that's not a cruel joke. He is a good keeper. His confidence has gone...probably following a long term niggling injury. Needs our support....you don't turn on a family member when he's at a low ebb in life. The fans sarcastically cat-calling him need a good hard look at themselves....fans are supposed to support the team.

 

I've discussed this question over the years with fans of dozens of clubs - do we expect players in our team to be error-free? There is a body of Saints fans who clearly think so. There's a comment earlier quoting some gormless idiot saying we would have won had we had De Gea. You know what, Lionel Messi could have made a difference as could Ronaldo. Oddly they weren't picked for Sunday.

Our goalies have always come in for stick. Even Shilton had his detractors. I remember standing at Tranmere during our Div One promotion season. Kelvin and Jose decided to go all polite and insist "After you" when a ball was played in. The big centre forward decided that he should take charge and stuck it in the net. Two blokes next to me started giving Kelvin real abuse. When they'd calmed I offered the opinion that SKD was the best keeper in Div One. "Yeah," they said, "and he's ****ing ****e. The ****." Now you'll see I was in for a highly intelligent debate, and as I couldn't cope with that level of cut and thrust I decided to remain silent on the matter. But as I said to mates afterwards, what did these guys expect? We were a good Div One team We gave Man Utd a game in the FA Cup. We went on to win promotion. But we weren't about to win the Champions League so, and I know this is unfair, we couldn't attract the world's best players. Fast forward just a few years, and the standard has clearly been upped but we are still Southampton, not Barcelona or even Chelsea. We will have players who make mistakes. Get over it. Give every player wearing the badge 100% support. Kick the cat when they make mistakes (metaphorically; I am not advocating animal cruelty). Then turn up the next week to see the team you love and support them again.

I was proud of our apparently error-strewn team on Sunday. I am gutted we lost, but I'll be at Watford to applaud them for that final and to cheer them on to a recovery win.

 

http://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/southampton/news/45209/

Some Saints fans have been very harsh on Fraser Forster who seems to have become the latest scapegoat for those who always seem to have to have a player to blame whether Saints are winning or losing.

But it seems that Forster could well be more hero than villain as reports from sources close to the football club are suggesting that the England stopper has been playing through the pain barrier for a number of months due to the fact that Saints had no viable alternative to replace him.

 

This is exactly why I asked the question in the OP, it has been apparent for some time that Fraser is not 100%, whether that is injury or confidence. It is far from criticism, just a suggestion as to what is best for the team and Fraser himself. The club surely would not have signed Hassen if they thought that he couldn't step into the first team when required. It does make you wonder why Taylor was brought in though.

 

Taylor was always a bit of a puzzle, but it seems he is there for passing his experience on, and work in the training and preparation regime.

 

Don't agree, he had a foot to play with IMO. And as I said, FF positioning made the strike 10x easier. Finish tho, opinions ................

 

Never mind nine lives our cat has a sixth sense as she was nowhere to be seen when we got home on Sunday. The dog just sat in the corner looking sheepish and then came over and licked my hand.

 

Why bother quoting my post? It's utterly unrelated.

Vin

 

Really!
Apologies, my mistake.

 

Not much point going over this still I suppose but I've seen this a bunch and want to point it didn't go over the wall, it went over Davis who wasn't in the wall when it was set but came over to protect it from interference when a couple of United players were trying to be a nuisance. He wasn't set to jump because he had to be standing his ground and it wasn't his job.

 

But, as I said earlier, if Tadić hadn't jumped out of the way he might have stopped it. You're right, Martial was between Tadić and Davis, and then moved to create a gap through which Zlatan shot, by which time Davis had filled the gap but unfortunately wasn't tall enough! On reflection, there were so many things wrong with the wall, not to mention Fraser's positioning, that it's easy to overlook what a fantastic free kick it was.

 

Tell you what, let's let our guys play every game in slow motion action replay and none of them will ever make a mistake.

Vin

 

That would actually be my superpower, if I could choose one. Everything would happen slo mo; well apart from the really boring stuff.

 

Arthur C Clarke wrote an excellent story on that subject. Worth a read if you have five minutes.

http://www.unz.org/Pub/StartlingStories-1952jul-00069

Vin

 

Sideways, backwards football earlier seemed like slow motion, and they still made mistakes

 

Yeah, I once watched one half of a Saints match from the '80s (think it was the '84 quarter-final away at Sheff Weds) on fast forward and the amount of times that the ball was passed back to the Keeper was incredible, The Keepers must've had the ball for about 15 minutes of the half!

 

I fully support criticism of players after poor performances and indeed praise after good performances. But I feel it's important to remember that one bad spell, and equally one good spell, doesn't last for ever. When criticising Fraser I think it's important to bear in mind that he has been fantastic for us since he has joined. It is is only the past few months we've seen a decline.

We have seen ourselves just how good he can be (Arsenal last season was it?) So let's support him and try and help get him back to his best.

 

The original poster asked "Should Fraser be "rested"?" to which my response is that it is my bloody wallet that needs a rest.

It has been expensive following Saints this season and it will not be many weeks now before we will be forking out for next years season ticket and I haven't even started saving for it yet.

Saints have consumed quite a sizeable chunk of my disposable income this year leaving not a lot to be deposited in my Post Office savings account.

 

The goalkeeper I was surprised who was loaned out was Gazziniga. A number of other clubs were monitoring him when he was at Colchester and Saints received praise for acquiring his signature.

I think we have generally done really well with goalkeepers over the years and I would have no problem with Forster. I think he looks like he has been carrying an injury as his kicking has been poor this season yet he is still a formidable shot-stopper. I know nothing o=about the other goalkeepers on the books but it would be interesting to see Puel's latest signing which certainly was unexpected.

Goalkeepers are generally a law unto themselves and they are obviously more noticeable when they perform poorly. I don't think Saints have had any genuinely poor goalkeepers since I have followed them even if the likes of Terry Gennoe and Peter Wells used to get stick. Ian Turner is a legend but he probably came in for more criticism than anyone else in that position for Saints. Forster is up with the best of them even if not of the quality of Shilton or Antii Niemi - the latter probably being the best I have seen turn out for us.

Wondered if anyone else had read Jonathan Wilson's "The outsiders" which charts the history of goalkeeping with Southampton's role in the early days of the sport being an interesting and little known aspect.