This always annoys me when people say he hasn't been the same since his injury, its slightly rewriting history a bit. When he came back from his serious knee injury, he instantly improved our defence, helped to turn around our poor form, and he broke our club record of longest clean sheet period, 7-odd games if I remember rightly. It was under Pellegrino he started having issues, like the rest of the team.
I’ve never been a huge Forster fan, even when he was “good”. Just never was mobile/agile enough for me. We haven’t had a really good keeper since Niemi in the early 00s or whenever that was. Davis had his moments (he also had plenty of errors as well from memory, especially regarding his near post). So it just shows how hard it is to find a really good keeper. Forster and McCarthy are average PL at best, probably lower PL level
Yeah exactly, which is why I don’t think it is a priority this summer. Keeper is a weird position anyway. There is always a keeper who is playing for a team near the bottom of the league who everyone thinks is great (Johnstone this year for example). They look great IMO because they have so many shots at them and all PL keepers will be good to great shot stoppers because they wouldn’t be in the PL otherwise. That is their bread and butter, great keepers do all the basics very well and still have the shot stopping ability, usually when they only have to face a couple of shots a game as they are at a good team
I have some ITK information specific to McCarthy (and just him - no other Saints players) And it is what I said - he wants a 100k a week contract as a last big pay day so is not signing an offer from Saints Hence my musing on who on Earth would give him that either this or next summer. No idea if city or Chelsea with have the slots open at that point
Goodbye! See you later and good luck with your career with .......... (no one is that desperate to waste good money on an average keeper) Bring in Sam Johnson from WBA
I guess from his perspective he might as well try because he probably thinks even if he gets to June 2022 with no 100k offer he could easily get the same as we are likely offering (either here or elsewhere) So he might as well try in his mind Just a theory of course
He will surely have higher tier suitors than us. That said I don’t really know what teams have first team goalkeeper slots open. I don’t think many above us feel the need to twist at this stage but I am not certain
My main issue with Fraser is that he doesn't command his box in the air half as much as he should given his size. Alex is particularly good at that but is not so good in other areas. Maybe if there was a way of morphing them both into one we would have a great Keeper but both are probably mid-table standard which is what we are in the main.
Let's be fair to McCarthy and remember that this has a 99.99999% likelihood of being bullshit. The term 'ITK' should have alerted us all to that.
It wouldn't surprise me if he could get more than we would pay as a free transfer from one of the big teams looking for a reliable number 2 (and preferably an English/home-grown one). Whether that "more" is £100k a week I don't know. There have been plenty of examples of keepers doing this, I have no idea what sort of wages they got though.
You wouldn't put it past Man City, as they've had Scott Carson up there doing nothing for years now. They do however have Steffen as backup so McCarthy may not be needed. I wouldn't mind McCarthy going this summer and bringing in a starter while keeping FF as backup (or vice versa). McCarthy is great sometimes and awful other times, so it is a position we could improve - just not as a priority given our budget.
That would depend on what Fraser wants. Neither are good enough to be our highest earners so unless either is willing to accept less I think we should look for a new number 1 after next season (assuming we wouldn't be able to sell both and replace this summer as that is unlikely).
West Brom aren't going to pay Alex 100k a week, Fraser won't want to play in the Championship and Gunn is already on loan next season I believe.