Risky imo. Gunn looks the business, but has only had a few games. If we had to play forster for the rest of the season for any reason, I can’t see us surviving. He can’t save long shots and the whole league knows it. I rate McCarthy, hope we manage to keep both him and gunn.
I’d imagine we saw this situation by bumping up his value. Buy a keeper you want for £10m who is likely to be better that your current one who you can sell for £15m. Wasn’t he in the last year of contract. If this works out, perhaps a good will message to the club as they did something well.
You're all probably right, it's more from his point of view that it was a bit weird, he could have got a massive sign on fee from anyone to be their 3rd choice home-grown-CL-qualifying GK. PS My money-making advice is available to all players for just 90% of what they pay their current agent.
Give the devil his due....This was definitely the plan from Reed. Sign Gunn & sell McCarthy(prob expected in the summer). I believe a few clubs had enquired last summer. McCarthy has value because he is English and luckily those big clubs struggle to fulfil those home grown quotas Good luck to Forster if he is on the mend. Even if he manages to return to his peak, I don’t think he is the right keeper for Ralph. We need a sweeper keeper type
If Fraser's good enough again (and he definitely used to be), I'll welcome him back with open arms. Vin
I would rather stick with McCarthy and Gunn, but I welcome this news (if true) because I'm glad to hear that Fraser could be on the mend. There was obviously something wrong with such a fall from grace, so I am delighted to hear he is good in training and may play again for us or someone else. Will believe it when we see him in a few training shots.
Selling our first choice keeper while in a relegation battle is an interesting tactic I must say Gunn has virtually no 1st team experience and Forster is untested in recent times and lacked mobility and confidence when last seen in action
Not all decisions will be purely RH's. He will have a major say, but he will also be privy to our situation. I'm sure he will need to be pragmatic as he isn't at one of the very rich clubs. If this is true (and that's IF) he will probably be accepting because firstly Forster is recovered enough in his eyes (but no one will really know until he has played....and he hasn't even appeared for the U23s at this point) and because the money raised will no doubt allow him to bring in someone he really wants. By now, Ralph must be very aware that the team is having a good shot at playing in his style, but he doesn't quite have the right players for consistency. As I said before..pleased for Forster, but this is a hell of a risk as Gunn could pull a hamstring and Fraser would be thrown to the wolves (aka the fans behind the goal). If we get a couple of Ralph-type players and it all comes off...wow, but if not.....
Not sure I totally agree with this. McCarthy I thought didn't play much as he has largely been used as back up. McCarthy has made 114 appearances in 11 years, all mainly in lower divisions.Since 2014 McCarthy has only made 44 appearances, and 34 of those were last season and this with us. Gunn has made 46 appearances last season (2 more appearances than McCarthy has made in 4 seasons and 27 in various England age groups.
Getting Gunn was definitely a coup for us...widely regarded as one of the best young keepers out there. He probably chose us as he thought he would get more game time, but then found it hard to displace McCarthy (who let's not forget has done well for us after our number one fell apart).
I'm not sure I totally agree with me I didn't realise Gunn had played 46 games for Naridge! I do now I've looked it up
I think what’s behind this story is the simple fact that Ralph has 3 senior keepers, 2 of whom have played for England, and a third who might well end up being the best of the lot. He has to resolve this riddle in the only way he can, by watching them in training, and then giving them a couple of games to assess their relative merits. That being the case, I would bet that Fraser will play against Derby, and possibly against Everton as well. I don’t think it would be fair to drop him into the Leicester game as in theory that will be the hardest of the next 3 matches. Then Ralph will have a better idea of which 2 keepers he wants to keep, with still almost 2 weeks of the window left to sell the other.
I respect Ralphs decisions, 100%. But this is dangerous. FF needs to have great game just to tread water. He could play out of his skin, and we may well lose because of our strikers missing chances. But our defence already looks really shaky, I could imagine now the lift the opposition would get with one uncertain pass, clearance or palmed save. We desperately need our confidence to pick up, & this could set us back, at a time where we really cannot drop anymore unlucky points. Its making me very nervous. I'm all for second chances, but we must grind the points before we start allowing good will to seep into our decision making. The next four league games are massive.
I just interpret this as Ralph being open to having a look at Fraser - most likely in the Derby replay - as opposed to it being some sort of financial plan to move on McCarthy. And if that's the case, I don't begrudge Ralph wanting to have a look. Fair enough. However if it does result in McCarthy leaving - whether by design or not - I do think that people are vastly over-estimating what we would get for him. I'd suggest £8m is absolute top end.
