I'd say hate is accurate. Not so much on this board, but looking at saintsweb or talking to fans at games and he gets blamed for anything and everything. In the past I felt baz made mistakes in terms of conceding goals. Not howlers as such, but for a fair few goals he conceded you'd know the keeper should do better. But I haven't seen that this season.
Also, if McCarthy was in goal going forwards, I would be having a mild panic attack every time he has the ball at his feet. I really don't want the stress of watching that week in week out!
I voted McCarthy, but it's toss of a coin. Once the coin is in the air, Bazunu will drop it and Macca will pass it to the opposition. He'll start Baz on Saturday though. I think he rates him enough to try and develop him. If the position is still a massive problem come January, I'd hope he tells Spors to go and get him a new toy.
Baz for me. Has started this season relatively well. McCarthy has had numerous goes at it but it has never gone well for an extended period. Bazunu is young and hopefully will continue to improve
I think there are people on here who clearly have never played in goal. When I played one of my team mates once said, "Goalie is the only position in football where there are ten other players who play that position on the pitch" and he was correct. The amount of people who knew what I should be doing, should have done, in games was myriad. Sometimes they were correct of course. I think the problem is like this. Last night McCarthy made a proper error, a stupid mistake he did not need to do, and shouldn't have done. But he also made some good saves and was generally playing in the way you'd expect a goalie of his experience to play - not brilliant but he was not hopeless. Bazuna does not make big rickets, he rarely fumbles the ball over the line, he rarely hammers off his line and misses the ball BUT his goalkeeping is worse and it is easy to miss. I have said this about three times and other better goalies than me (friends of posters) have agreed. I have seen with my own eyes his positioning during defensive play, more than once I have said out loud 'Why is he stood there?' (often flat-footed by the way) He'll be far too much over to one side, stood on or too near his line, and reacts to the attacking football too late. So a shot happens it goes in, he dives and just misses it and everyone says 'He couldn't do anything about that' and I think he could if he was in the right position and looked more like he was concentrating on what was happening in front of him. If he is under pressure in the penalty area with our Sunday League defending he has to take the lead, look commanding, make decisive decisions, parry the ball wide, he doesn't. 32 years of watching and playing football he doesn't look like a goalie. It is the weirdest thing I have seen in that position in my whole life. I'm saying no more because I have now peed off more than half the posters on here and I'm probably on ignore for just as many - fair enough, but unless he improves - and I hope he does - we will alway let in 'he couldn't do anything about that' goals and all he has to do is make one good save and then next five dodgy goals are forgotten. I wish I had that when I played.
How come his improvement so far this season has left you still feeling he isn’t a goalkeeper if you do hope he improves? McCarthy is Mr Howler to me. Absolutely ruined our start to last season with a moment of total incompetence and repeated the exact same thing last night.
This comes back to what I said earlier, he just doesn't strike me as a natural keeper. Does anyone know if he started playing football quite late?
Because there have been a couple of goals were peope have literally said 'He couldn't do anything about that' and I have thought 'Perhaps but also if he'd had been a tad more on his game he might have saved that' but if I say anything you get arguments and long long discussions that have no point to them because he'll be playing next week and a lot of people think he's great. Truthfully it's just my opinion and it does not matter - but I do tell the truth about how I feel, I always have and it is not always a good thing.
I voted Macca because I just think he will make more big saves than Baz but I really hope that we sign a new first choice in January because I believe it is such a vital position at the base of the spine. I honestly think that we would've got automatic promotion last time with a better GK and we simply have stop conceding as many as we are. Clean sheets are the road to promotion I believe.
I prefer McCarthy and voted for him. He's not as good with the ball at his feet but that shouldn't be such an important part of the keeper game now we're not playing Martinball. The mistake last night wasn't about his technical ability with the ball, it was just a stupid pass to play at all. The ball should have gone long(er). He just needs to be trained to play the ball long if there's any doubt at all about playing a short pass. Going off that Still comment about stopping play in training, asking where space was and a player asking if he was "allowed to pass it there", I think the squad's had this idea of looking for short passes drilled into them so hard it's a tough habit to break. The issue with Bazunu is definitely that he doesn't make many very good to great saves and also that there are a lot of goals he concedes that aren't glaring errors where he's let the ball dribble through his legs or something but you still look at them and think maybe he could he have done better or maybe another keeper might have saved that. Possibly it's the positioning thing, I haven't paid enough attention. Having said all that, Bazunu is clearly first choice and I don't think he deserves to be dropped right now.
Wasn't there an article that said he didn't start off playing in goal and came to the position fairly late for a professional footballer or am I imagining that?
How old is late? He played for Shamrock Rovers at 16 and was capped by Ireland u15s so he can't have started THAT late.
I meant football in general rather than the position specifically. Wondered if he might not have played much as a kid.
I don't recall that but my memory is terrible. Would be interested to see it if anyone can dig it out.
To be fair I did write 'Wasn't there..' I'm not saying it was true and I may have misread or misremembered a different article.
You and @Libby may both be right. The how old is late question was a genuine one. I think your posts on Bazunu are very interesting. I'd never paid enough attention to him to pick up on his positioning but it would explain the things I have noticed about saves not being made and my vague feeling something isn't quite right with his keeping.
I think when we have a settled defence in general, it will be easier to make a judgement on the GK but in the current situation I think McCarthy is the better option because of his extra experience and the fact that in general he seems to be more commanding, which in turn will help the defence become more confident. Of course, that is on the proviso that he can eliminate the bad decisions. That said, I believe we'd have been 1 down in the first minute last night if Baz had been in goal. That save was impressive. Bottom line for me is that in those situations, and maybe one-on-ones with a striker, I think McCarthy is more likely to make a save than Baz. Having said all that, I'm pretty sure Baz will be back on Saturday, especially after Still's post-match comments.
Well to be honest, I have said this before, I hope I am being a d**k and I completely wrong. After all it is my club since 1971 and we have had some rough old years in those times, so I genuinely hope he sees my comments and messages me at the end of the season and says 'I am a know-it-all w***er' I absolutely want to be 100% wrong. Taking the last post by @TheRealSaints it would definitely help either 'keeper if we had a more confident, dominant defence that occassionally won some headers, I mean are the Middlesbrough coaching staff saying right now, "Pump big crosses into the box lads, all game, don't worry if they aren't that good, a couple of them will work" I mean that doesn't help any goalie no matter what their standard is.
