Transfer Rumours Summer 2025 1 - 10 June, 16 June - 1 September

Damned with faint praise!

 

Will he? He struggled immensely in the Champ last time and that's already two years ago.

 

I don't remember him struggling. The opposite actually. If Bazunu hadn't got injured we wouldn't have gone up through the playoffs. McCarthy in goal was a safe pair of hands. McCarthy is more than good enough at Championship level, if he can stay fit for a season.

 

He was a safe pair of hands for about 8 games, 2 seasons ago. I don't think that means much if anything

 

To be fair he only played 5 times (not including the playoffs) so not really a fair judgement. As others have said, I think that his presence in goal for the playoffs was significant.

 

He's better than Bazunu either way.

 

Bazunu is an excellent shot stopper and good with his feet. I'm happy enough to see him compete for the number 1 spot. Not having to play rush goalie would help as well.

 

Maybe we can negotiate a good player on loan back from Newcastle? They must have a few more Frasers kicking around.

 

He was excellent with his feet and because of that, Martin loved him, but he is seriously lacking in the shot-stopping department. Stats back that up too. While he was on loan he saved only 50% of the shots he faced. 63% in the championship 23/24. Not exactly inspiring.

 

For me, a loan with any sort of purchase agreement attached - whether option or obligation - would be the worst outcome. Either loan him out with no purchase attached (in the hope that we get promoted this season and he returns) or stand firm and insist that it must be a sale.

I still don't understand why Howe seems to be so against Pope though. I think he's a very good keeper.

 

Excellent shot stopper? I think that's arguably his worst attribute.

 

My bad I think I'm thinking of the McCarthy, Bazunu merry-go-round of the PL season a couple years back.

 

Did he really? 50%?! That’s terrible. 1in every 2 shots on target leads to a goal. It would be funny if he wasn’t a saints player.

 

I think we can just let the club decide on the GK position.

Totally new coaching and DoF set up with no loyalty to either. I don't think Baz is as bad as some make out but equally I don't think any of us can confidently say he's destined to be a top keeper. We can argue about it all day but we have a coaching set up who can take an objective view and thankfully solid goalkeepers are fairly inexpensive if it does present as an issue for them.

Am sure whoever they go for will get the full backing of the St Mary's faithful!

 

Not just Pope, all left-footers (sorry, keep religion out of football...)

 

My recollection was Bazunu struggled and Mccarthy came in with a few games ti go and was solid and helped get us over the line. Yep just checked Mccarthy played last 5 games of promotion season

 

Yep. There's a stat somewhere that also puts him the worst GK in Europe's top 5 leagues last season. In his defence though, I think Martin threw him in at the deep end in our Championship season for such a young GK playing suicide football and when things went wrong for him, maybe he would have benefitted from being out of the limelight for a while. I'm not sure what style of Football Std Liege played in Belgium but whatever it was it seems he suited that even less.

 

Bazunu ruptured his achillies.

 

Not technically the right thread but since we're talking about GB, I stumbled across this from 3 years ago. Don't ask this person for the lottery numbers!

https://www.reddit.com/r/coybig/comments/vfjd78/by_the_2425_season_gavin_bazunu_will_be_the_first/

 

I’m not sure how a loan with an option really benefits us. Isn’t that usually the kind of deal struck when the originating club has few options and little leverage