Bazunu got a bit of stick for his performance last week against Hull, especially the opener, when he parried a header straight into an incoming attacker. Down at the bottom of the goalkeeper stats again already too.
McCarthy isn't a medium-term option of course - he's nearly 36 and has his own dodgy moments. Be interesting to see what Southampton do in terms of keeper. Their forum wasn't one bit upset with the change.
I don't see it working out for Bazunu at Southampton at this point. If he does come good, and there's no guarantee that he will, it will likely be at another club. Looks to be no more than a below average Championship keeper at this point in time, but it would be an awful step backwards for him if he has to drop down to League 1 again. He's already tried the continent and that didn't really work out either.
McCarthy had that awful error during the week for the liverpool goal so disappointing to see him replace gavin.Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Another new manager at Southampton - the eighth since Bazunu joined, including caretaker managers. Bazunu restored to the starting line-up, but that may not last too long after another howler cost Southampton a goal. Seems he nearly blundered an equaliser too, and then conceded a corner for holding onto the ball too long. Southampton forum not remotely impressed, and if that's any way indicative of the general fan view, then he really needs a new break (as Eirambler suggested above)
Azaz came off the bench and got an assist, while Manning (who's been in and out of the starting line-up) started and nearly scored, so all very iffy for us there.
Stick Bazunu up front maybe. He looks good in the air from a corner
You really do have it in for Bazunu - what is your problem?
When teams score it is the striker that gets the praise - when teams concede it is always the goalkeeper who gets the blame.
After the QPR game I made the point that Bazunu should have come out and taken out the QPR player - the problem is that these days doing something like that in the box can lead to a penalty. Despite your assertions Bazunu pulled off a great save at the end of the game against QPR to maintain Southampton's lead - he was directly responsible for winning the game despite his earlier error.
Against Sheff Wed Banzunu pulled off 4/5 really good saves - but again - what is your focus - timewasting, which every single goalkeeper does in football. Furthermore, he was not 'weak' for their goal - the striker was unchallenged, he partially scuffed the shot which created a spin on the ball and it bounced just in front of Bazunu and then spun away from him. It would have been an oputstanding save if he made it. Of course what you also don't mention is the really good save he made a couple of minutes later to keep Southampton in the lead.
Bazunu had very little to do against Charlton and the Charlton goal was a free header from a corner.
Against Leicester Bazunu was outstanding - making several really good saves - including one outstanding one when the score was 1-0
I disagree with you about the first goal against Millwall - for Bazunu to get that he would have had to make an outstanding save. He did make an outstanding save a few minutes before that goal getting down to the post on a deflected shot and pushing it out for a corner. He didn't have a hope for the second goal and the third goal was one of those things. This game was the worst Southampton game since Eckert took over - and it was them lapsing into their old bad habits. It is the job of defenders to defend and one of their main tasks is to stop strikers taking free shots on goal - Southampton are very poor at that - you hardly ever see a Southampton player throwing themselves at the ball to bloc a shot. The Southampton defence allowed 21 shots on goal during that game.
Absolutely - Kelleher is a much better goalkeeper - remembering that Kelleher is about 3 1/2 years older than Bazunu and didn't have his development completely disrupted for a year with an injury (never mind being at a club that completely imploded). In my view Bazunu is the clear no.2 - Travers is 26 and seems to have opted for the money of being a back-up in the PL (and no criticism of him here for that) - O'Leary is 29 and while a solid Championship goalkeeper, has probably peaked at this stage and cannot get back into the team against Vitek - and Keeley is only a year younger than Bazunu, didn't have his development disrupted by injury, and is not playing particularly well in a poor Luton team. Killian Cahill has also bee decent for Orient this season. Now I think Keeley has a lot of potential - but so has Bazunu. People do not realise the negative impact of missing a year with injury of a developing goalkeeper, including the loss of confidence given the seriousness of the injury and its propensity for reoccurance (something that would probably end his career).
There are very few goalkeepers that do not have weaknesses - and Bazunu does have weaknesses - and despite being behind Kelleher (who I would argue is probably the best keeper that Ireland has ever had - yes - ahead of Shay Given) - Bazunu is in the top four best Irish goalkeepers of all time - behind Given and Tommy Farquarhson - and he still has the potential to catch Kelleher given his age. A lot of factors will come into to play to determine that outcome.
I don't have it in for Bazunu - I just have it in for nonsense analysis. For example:
No he didn't. Wednesday had three shots on target in the whole game, one of which went in.
Again, this is not true. Leicester had one shot on target in the game.
You see how this sort of guff just doesn't help the debate?
Ah he was though. It's a 25-yard plus effort with not a lot of pace that he has plenty of time to react to, slight nick or not, but he doesn't manage it.
I think it really undermines your credibility when you keep prattling on about Tommy Farquarhson - a player you've never seen play. I don't think any goalkeeper of the 20s can really be compared to a modern keeper - the game has changed far too much. You just have to watch some of the early European Championship games or European Cup games to see top keepers of the era - 30/40 years after Farquarhson - stuck to their lines while forwards rush in to see that.
Bottom line, for the past four years now, under about five different managers at Southampton plus a loan spell in Belgium, Bazunu has never been anything other than poor, has had fans frustrated at his lack of ability in the air or in terms of how rarely he pulls off a really good save, and has been down the bottom of the main goalkeeping metrics.
To call that out isn't to have something against him. And when you make stuff up to defend him, it doesn't help your case.
Oh - yes you do.
You are constantly harping on about every single perceived error he makes and never give any credit for the good work he does do. A demonstration of this was the 'blunder' for the QPR goal - yet ignoring his outstanding save near the end of the game that won the game for Southampton.
This is what you get when you look up the stats on BBC or wherever you are getting them - instead of actually looking at the game.
At 2-0 Bazunu made an outstanding save after the ball ricocheted off the leg of a defender (his best save of the day) - it wasn't a shot from Wednesday, it wasn't included in the stats, but it would have resulted in a goal if he hadn't saved it.
At 2-1 Bazunu pulled over a very good save from a shot by Cadamarteri (again a shot that the defenders made little effort to block)
At 2-1 Bazunu made a fingertip save to deflect the ball over the bar from a shot
At 3-1 Bazunu pulled off another save from a wicked deflection with the ball spinning in the air. The shot looked to be going wide but if he hadn't pushed it out it could easily have bounced and spun into the bottom corner - again wasn't included in the stats.
And like above - stop looking at the stats and look at the actual game. In one incident very early in the game there were four shots in a row by Leicester inside the Southampton box - all on target and all blocked by a Southampton defender, rebounding back to the strikers again and again - and the same thing happened at least two other times. Yet none of those shots were counted in the stats as being on target. Bazunu made an incredible save from a header by Jordan James in that game.
You see what happens when you rely solely on dodgy statistics rather than looking at what actually happened in the game.
A striker 20 yards out was given an eternity to set-up and strike the ball - Bazunu was a bit late getting down but he also had to keep an eye on another Millwall player who had broken free into the box on his left, but it would still have required an outstanding save from Bazunu to keep it out - one which unfortunately he didn't make.
Just because football has changed over the decades does not mean that keepers today are better than their predecessors. Goalkeeping is different today than in the past but that does not mean that the likes of Ricardo Zamora, Frank Swift, Vladimir Beara, Lev Yashin, Gordon Banks or Pat Jennings weren't among the greatest goalkeepers of all time. I don't need to have seen Tommy Farquharson play to know how highly regarded he was by his fellow professionals or the fact that he was the best goalkeeper to play for Ireland for a period of 60 years (not to downgrade how good Tommy Breen and Jimmy O'Neill were - but they were the only to keepers to play any decent number of games in the top division in England during the interveening period). So much has changed in every aspect of football that you cannot compare like with like - you can only compare goalkeepers (and other players) with their peers at the time - and Tommy Farquharson was one of the best in England and Wales at the time and the best that Ireland had for decades after.
Bottom line - the kid has found himself in the worst possible situation that he could have over the past THREE and a HALF years - a Southampton team that has had EIGHT different managers (including caretakers who have managed for now more than 30 games - with ten managerial changes) since he joined - a team that completely imploded in his first season - that left him exposed by Russell Martin's determination not to play defence in his second season - that saw him suffer a potentially career ending injury before the end of that second season - that saw him miss almost all of his third season and tentatively come back in Belgium only to get injured again - and who this season was lumbered with a guy playing football manager as his head coach. Since Bazunu has been reinstated Southampton have won four games on the trot before losing yesterday and Bazunu deserves credit for his role in those wins.
I don't make stuff up - I go and look at the games and see what actually happened - not stick my nose in a bunch of stats that never could tell the real story. And you have had something against him from day one - you have constantly criticised Bazunu yet in comparison rarely utter any word of criticism for any of the other Irish goalkeepers. Maybe I go a bit over the top in defending Bazunu - but that is only in an attempt to redress the balance of the hypercriticial approach that you take whenever you make a comment about the kid.
Now I will reiterate again - Bazunu's development has stalled - for the reasons that I have outlined above - and its not rocket science. He is still only 23 and has another 6/7 years of development to get under his belt to see if he can fulfill the potential that has been there for everyone to see as a 16 year old kid. The biggest thing that he needs now is a stable environment - he has 18 months to go on his contract and hopefully Southampton will not make another daft decision on the manager - Eckart looks like he knows what he is doing and I think should be given a shot. But if things continue to be a mess there then Bazunu needs to get out of the place as soon as he can and find a more stable situation (somehwere on the continent might be a good idea). I am still optimistic that we will eventually see him playing at PL level with Kelleher - and I have confidence that if he is needed in the Ireland team in the meantime we have one hell of a good keeper for the job who won't let us down.
Eh, I'll answer for myself, thanks. So when I say I don't have anything against any given player, you get to accept that.
No it wouldn't - it was going wide. Hence why it wasn't included in the shots.
The problem with the rest of your comments is you have no concept of what's a routine save and what's an outstanding save - every save is outstanding to you it seems. I'd class them as routine. Similarly, every goal seems to be unstoppable, which is also hard to credit.
Of course they're not included as being on target. They were blocked - that's a different thing. The key difference of course being that Bazunu didn't even have to save them, so when you claim Bazunu made really good saves, you can't count the blocks FFS. Leicester had one shot on target, as I said.
Ah it does though. There's not a single sportsman from the 20s who would compete today - in any sport. Joe Davis was an eight-time world champion before making a century break in the competition. Jesse Owens' world records (at least one of which was wind-assisted) wouldn't qualify him for the Olympics today. Rene Lacoste wouldn't stand a chance in tennis today - Bjorn Borg effectively tried that experiment in 1991 when playing with a wooden racquet, and could barely win a set. Capablanca would likely be an anonymous chess Grandmaster, but nowhere near world champion standard. Every single sport has moved on hugely in the last 100 years - with Owens and Davis and Lacoste and Capablanca hugely to thank for that of course. But they wouldn't compete today. (Bizarrely, in the same breath, you contradict yourself by saying "you can only compare goalkeepers (and other players) with their peers at the time", which I agree with.)
To suggest that a goalkeeper from the 1920s is comparable to today's players is to so far ignore the evolution of the goalkeeper role - from the invention of narrowing the angle to gloves to the backpass rule to the evolution of the sweeper keeper, and also taking in the lighter footballs (in the wet at least), more powerful opponents, better boots to induce spin, and so on - as to render your view on Farquarhson risible. As I say, have a watch (you like that, don't you?) of some of the early European Championship games, and you'll see keepers who'd get pilloried today. They were absolutely the best of their time, but time has moved on hugely since then. Paddy Kenny, Dean Kiely, Gerry Payton, Kieran O'Hara - all betters keepers than Farquarhson, in absolute terms.
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