Match Day Thread Stoke City v Norwich City,Tues 24 Nov,ko 1900hrs

Pulis left Stoke seven years ago, yet his ghost clearly still haunts the club. Hard to believe that Sir Stanley Matthews spent half of his long career playing for the Potters. Are we due to play Sheffield Wednesday soon?

 

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To quote WhoScored: "[Norwich] were effective at creating goalscoring opportunities from counter attacks"

 

Having 2 keepers on the bench makes sense now. I have to say that I don't rate McGovern - he is too short and too timid. Krul would have been off his line and prevented their 2nd goal and would not have been bullied for the disallowed effort. He had to bring McGovern on last night but if I were DF - and fortunately for NCFC I am not - I would put Barden in on Sat.

 

To be fair Zimmermann was much more at fault for the second goal than McGovern. For some reason he escapes blame despite really poor defending.

 

I don't think Mcgovern is good enough either, I hoped we might bring in a decent back up keeper but we did that last season with Fahrmann and he hardly got a game.

An unnecessary expense .
Mcgovern is a classic back up keeper happy to pick up a salary and train with the team knowing he will just be a bench warmer.

We won most of our games 1-0 heavily relient on Krul to keep it at 0 so he's vital to our success.

I would rather chuck Barden in but he's a complete rookie whereas Mcgovern has played in International tournaments notably that excellent performance against Germany at 36 I'm guessing his best years are behind him.

Ironically Stoke have Angus Gunn on loan who would be absolutely perfect for us in this situation and he doesn't even make their bench.

Missing Krul and Buendia and Pukki being our only fit striker may cause us huge problems in the next few games, hopefully we have too much for Coventry on Saturday.

 

Interesting how many would play Barden ahead of McGovern, despite having very little knowledge of Barden's ability.

 

I think that's correct he's a complete rookie but so was Max Josh and our other academy boys , at 20 years old he needs to start playing regularly he's a Welsh youth International I think.

It would be harsh to bring in Mcgovern for half a game then drop him so he should start against Coventry and see what happens.

If he doesn't perform well then try Barden .

 

Suspenjuries have definitely put a massive spanner in the works but hopefully the confidence in the squad will make up for missing key players .

Coventry Luton Sheffield Wednesday and Forrest games coming thick and fast .

 

Barden is untried and there is always a risk giving a young GK his first game but I just feel that Coventry at home is an ideal fixture for him. I would then probably revert to McGovern despite my misgivings about him as the teams after Coventry have strikers who would try and bully Barden.

 

I remember watching McGovern for N Ireland a few years back and he was really good and I was very pleased when we bought him. It must be difficult being a backup keeping and play for first half of a game for 6 months. Sure he will be rusty to start off, but he is a decent keeper.

 

He played against Luton in the League Cup and had plenty of minutes in the pre season tour

 

I’m in the pro McGovern camp. He’s a good pro, he has showed class at some points in his career - he deserves a chance.

 

And he is still playing in international matches isn't he?

 

Barden ? I don't think so

 

More than half a game off the bench anyway

 

With all this negativity regarding McGovern,what do you think DF should do?
We have what we have.
So the choice is,either play a seasoned pro with International experience,or throw in an untried youngster.
Instead of castigating McGovern,don't you think it's about time we got behind the guy,and give him a chance?

I do think that some on here want the guy to fail.

OTBC,I back my team 100%

 

I haven't got any stats to back this up, but sacrificing a front player for an extra defender late in the game, in an attempt to defend a lead, often seems to me to prove counter-productive. It introduces uncertainty about who is responsible for what, especially at set pieces. So much disruption had already taken place by the time Zimmermann came on last night, a dose of uncertainty was inevitable. Credit to all for holding out.

 

All I was thinking was that we are down to 2 keepers so would the game against Coventry be a better chance to blood Barden rather than risk him facing other teams as his first league experience if McGovern was injured or suspended. I do not particularly rate McGovern and I certainly do not want him to fail but the fact is that he came here as first choice, remained in that position for a good while and, without labouring the point, was not a roaring success. His last contract was on the basis of being last resort third choice keeper and that would have been his role this year if the finance had been available to buy another keeper. A good loyal servant to the Club but I will worry until Krul is fit again.