For Saints to get a new keeper then we will have to sell either FF or McCarthy. It is simple budgeting. FF won't leave unless someone is willing to pay him more or the same as he is now and McCarthy has either just signed or is going to sign a new contract. I don't know what happened to those two they were excellent goal keepers.
Bit of a coincidence that two former England international keepers should both be playing so bad. Maybe we should look at the defence in front of them, and the manager's tactics. What happens if we buy another keeper, and he also has a dip in form (due to our leaky defence)? Sell him too?
defence starts with the keeper. Look at Chelsea when Mendy came in…suddenly much more solid. Likewise Villa with Martinez. Also to sardonically call it a ‘coincidence’ is petty. Clearly it isn’t. It’s happened since they’ve been asked to use their feet which has obviously impacted both of their confidence levels.
I think all of your points here are reasonable. I’m simply saying why not spend the balance of the Ings and Vesty money on a keeper instead of trying to strengthen elsewhere. I know it looks ridiculous having 3 highly paid keepers on the books but if that’s what we need to improve then so be it. FF will be off the wageroll next year so the net position will only be hit short-term. If we can loan either of them out for a % of wages then that would help too. The overall point I’m trying to make is a third keeper (a good one, you say there are no guarantees but obviously…that’s a given with any transfer) is a better use of funds than adding, for example, another CM when we have JWP, Armstrong, Diallo, Romeu and Smallbone who can pay there.
I keep on about it, but Sam Johnstone for me would be an excellent signing. We could probably get him for £10-12M. I wouldn't think his wages would be a problem too.
Fully agree on the basis that he’s made a few saves over the last few months. Already sets him high above existing options.
Are you legitimately trying to say that the defence doesn’t start with a keeper or are you just being obtuse?
Legitimate. The keeper is the last line, surely. Chill by the way, there’s no need for a squabble. I just think the keepers are not the problem people are making out.
I’m probably much more chilled than I sound! We had the worst defence numerically last and statistically the two worst keepers. The correlation is stark and direct. Granted our midfield didn’t provide enough protection and granted our defenders weren’t great but they were outliers in their statistical contributions. I suppose agree to disagree!
I am shocked Johnstone is still at WBA to be honest edit: seems like he is staying and going to sign a new contract
Yeah it’s an interesting debate. It’s just that Angus Gunn was also considered not good enough. How many keepers will we go through til we start realising the problem runs deeper? When a manager suffers two record-equaling defeats in successive seasons, questions about his defensive tactics should also be raised. But anyway, great result today so it’s all good (for now)!
I otherwise agree with your post CGT Yet, those nine goal defeats are massive outliers in both seasons. We ended 2019/20 with -9 GD. Its conspicuous that Ralph's system has a BSoD loop when suddenly playing the game with 10 men.
Not saying he is not a good keeper but you have said statistically we had the 2 worst keepers, yet statistically WBA had the worse record conceding 76 goals in which he played in most of them.
I guess there are some stats about shots to saves or goals to shots or the like But they weren’t linked I am sure i saw a F365 article ranking first and second choice goalkeepers (I doubt it was solely stats based). It has both ours at around 13th I think
Yes it was an article on the following: save percentage Expected goals:shots Short kicking accuracy Long kicking accuracy
We will soldier on with Forster and McCarthy and hopefully they will go next year. Its a shame that Fraser didn’t move when he lost his place, he was absolute class back in the day.
Looks like it will be McCarthy, probably as he is rumoured to have agreed a new deal whilst Forster turned his down
