Morning boys and girls, obviously bitter disappointment yesterday, coming away from SMS without a point after playing so fantastically. I feel Adkins made the wrong choice yesterday but I can forgive that as he has made plenty of correct ones. What I am struggling to forgive is not Identifying key weaknesses whilst doing our transfer business, arguably we have Yoshida coming in which I hope he will be as good as what we hear but still have limited cover and a weak Left back in Danny Fox! My major concern is the Keeper. How have we not got someone in to replace the aging loyal Davis. Yes he has been a good servant but we are premier league now and he is not good enough! We cannot buy but we now need to do the next best thing and quickly snap up Craig gordon as he is without Club!! What does everyone else think?
I think it's a bit harsh to judge Davis at this stage. He has saved two penalties, not really been at fault for any goals although his poor kicking eventually led to the penalty and could have cost us. But any keeper would have the same demands on them to play out from the back and United were putting a lot of pressure on those kicks so who's to say Gordon or anyone else would have done better? I agree that long-term he obviously needs replacing but so far this season I've been impressed by him if anything.
I think SKD has been fairly solid so far, his distribution was poor yesterday but our goals were due to our defenders yesterday not the goalie. Fonte especially with the 3rd, hoofed out for a corner when it would have been easier to put it out for a throw in and then didn't mark VP and gave him a clear header.
Agree that Davis not really to blame for the loss yesterday and that another centre back would have been my preference during the transfer window. ...however, I do think that there are better keepers out there (even on a free) and any ways of improving the chances of us staying up should be looked at. Artur Boruc is also available on a free.
Sorry lads. Read this thread and "strangely" posted on the old one. Craig Gordon....first of all we over paid for him big time. Paid 9m, when 3/4m would have been about right. Secondly...only played about 90 games for us due to injuries. To be fair Defoe broke his arm with (on purpose) when he had just got back to fitness and was looking OK. We let him go because yes he was on massive wages (I heard £50k a week) but we have the RoI and Belgium national keepers. (Both better imho....but a lot of SAFC fans disagree and rate CG high) For a free transfer got to be worth a punt if you really need a keeper. Good shot stopper but not very commanding. Never says a word to his defenders and always looks (face wise) very nervous. Would I rather have KD or CG in my team. Would be CG. Something clearly not right that he is still a free agent.....
Thanks for the Sunderland perspective Moorsleymountainman, I can see why you'd prefer Gordon over Davies based on yesterday's game, but he was selected as the keeper in the championship team of the year last season for a reason. Apart from his kicking which is occasionally a bit dodgy he had a very solid season and won us points on his own behind an often shaky defence (notably against Leeds where he made a string of outstanding saves to keep us ahead in a game we really should have lost). He deserves a chance in the premier league in my opinion.
It makes me laugh, " he saved two penalties" they were soft and most of the people in the crowd would have saved them plus it was his poor kicking that gave it away yesterday! If we keep him in goal we are risking relegation! Craig Gordon is a good keeper and is worth a punt!
I see no need to replace Kelvin Davis. Especially with somebody who is clearly wanting big wages and cant get out of bed without tearing something. He made some very good saves yesterday. Yes he gave away the penalty, but he still saved it, and I feel he is being instructed to play in a way that he feels uncomfortable with viz a vis kicking, which contributed to some of the harem scarem moments at the back yesterday.
They may have been soft penalties but they still had to be saved. The save from van Persie's was outstanding regardless of the poor choice to chip it, and most goalkeepers wouldn't have managed it. Craig Gordon played one senior game last season how do you know how good he is?
He saved the penalty whether soft or not. Also don't forget that sometimes the keepers presence and demeanor can affect the player kicking the ball. There has to be a reason that SKD saves a good proportion of penalties.
Trouble is Guys do you not think that we are looking for scape goats because we lost. It is true he did make two glaring errors of judgement yesterday when kicking out from the back. One we got away with the other was just before the penalty. In the cold light of day our opinions about a players ability to be in the team is based on emotions and not on real ability. He let in two goals....he probably should have stopped Van Persie's first or his kicking out from the back was negligent all possibly true. You could possibly argue though that Lambert should have scored at least one more or that Lallana should have had at least one. There is a weakness at the back of that there is no doubt. We have scored 8 goals unfortunately we have let in 9. Would we have won yesterday if we had had a different keeper..or another CB.....Who knows. Apart from the first 10 minutes we pretty well bossed the mid field until about 15 minutes from the end. When they brought Scholes on he took over the mid field on his own he seemed to just stand almost in the centre circle splaying out balls like there was not tomorrow. They changed shape the instant he came on. That in my view is where we went wrong We brought on two out and out attackers instead of two experienced mid fielders. Twice we have done that and twice we have lost.......The one weakness NA has is his lack of premier experience and unfortunately it has cost us. No I am not advocating Adkins out or any like that but to me it is glaringly obvious that bad decisions have cost us in both games Whether it be the mangers or the players. Just as the team has to learn so has our Nigel. As some one else said on another post It is as much a learning curve for the manager as it is for most of the players.
Gotta pull you up on that one Beddy. I was less than 10 feet away from Davis and Van Persie, and there was no way Davis was stopping that. He had to cover his near post, Van Persie whacked the ball down an acute angle to the far post. A save there would have been more by luck unless he specifically blocked the angle to the far post, leaving his near post exposed. And on the replays, he did get a touch on it with his leg, so he nearly did save it. Just a clinical finish from one of the best strikers in the world.
Maybe it's just me but I think anyone who thinks Davis is good enough is in dreamland! He doesn't save enough fact! Take the Wigan game for example...not a particularly memorable match I know...who gets man of the match....Wigan goalie as I think he did Saturday again! He made some fantastic stops in a game not littered with chances yet when he was called upon he was there! This is not the ase for Kelvin!
I wasn't strongly suggesting he should have saved it to be honest, I did say maybe. I was trying to compare different ways of looking at things. Hence my later comments about Lambert and Lallana as a comparison.
Come on, Wigan had two chances and those shots were unsaveable. We had lots of shots on target and yes, Al-Habsi made some great saves but Davis would have made many of those saves as well. Anyway you'd better get used to him because Gazzaniga is not ready for premier league football.
He had no chance whatsoever with RVP's first goal. I had a great view and SKD had very little time to react because of the power of his shot. It would have been a world class save had he kept it out.
Indeed, it did actually hit his leg but such was the force of the shot it still went in. Would have been an incredible save had he managed it.
