QuoteUgly mistake in injury time after a very quiet game for him. Faffing around with the ball at his feet and got caught. Plymouth bring it back to 2-1. Azaz was very quiet as PAFC had barely any chances. Manning and Smallbone played very well.
Massive howler from Bazunu in the 91st minute, almost assured of a clean sheet in a stress free game, and he gets caught on the ball and gifts Plymouth a goal to make it 2-1.
https://kesslereffect.bandcamp.com/album/kepler - New music. It's not that bad.
Ugly mistake in injury time after a very quiet game for him. Faffing around with the ball at his feet and got caught. Plymouth bring it back to 2-1. Azaz was very quiet as PAFC had barely any chances. Manning and Smallbone played very well.
Ugly mistake but that is bound to occur. They still won too. It is disappointing but wasn't fatal. One to learn from.
Yep, a bad one alright. It looked to me like an overly complacent young player losing concentration on his way to a 4th(?) clean sheet in a row. As Ole says, one he'll learn from rather than a mistake that'’d make you question his ability.
Sky showed an interesting caption during the game.
First 9 games = 20 goals conceded, 0 cleans
sheets, 4+ goals conceded 3 times.
In the subsequent 15 games it's 9 conceded (10 now), 7 clean sheets and 0 times conceding 4.
Great turnaround in personal form but also credit to the manager for sorting out the teams's defence generally and turning a soft team into a team that wins routinely. It's kind of what I was hoping would happen Kenny but he never came close to sustaining any signs of a turnaround.
The kind of moment that makes me glad he is in the Championship for now where every mistake isn't getting played out in front of a global audience. That said I remember him making a similar mistake about three years ago playing for the Man City Under 23s, so disappointing to see it happen to him again. Needs to learn that if you take a bad first touch you just need to punt it long.
Keane O'Shea Given Best Smallbone
That's an excellent pointOriginally Posted by Eirambler
If these mistakes were in the premier league. His confidence would take an far bigger knock.
lapse in concentration - every goalkeeper has one of these at some stage - big thing is to make sure it never happens again (if it does then there is a problem).
Given how hard he is supposed to work - I would be shocked to see Bazunu in such a situation again for the rest of his career.
You don't have to go that far back - he made a similar error against Preston in October. Got caught in possession 5/10 yards outside his box; his clearance was charged down and rebounded back towards goal but fortunately he recovered to beat the forward back to it. That time I think there was a defender just in the way which didn't help things, but still, similar enough
Last edited by pineapple stu; 31/12/2023 at 9:08 AM.
Nah - completely different situation - it was right at the start of the second half - Smallbone passed the ball back from the centre spot and Bazunu told the defender to leave it - the defender ran right across in front of him blocking Bazunu, allowing the Preston player to get up to the ball and block the kick. Now Bazunu should have been more conscious of the position of both the Preston player and the defender, but any goalie in the situation would have expected the defender to get out of the way after being told to leave the ball - the defender should have moved wide to make himself available in case Bazunu needed an outlet to him.
But in that game Bazunu made two cracking saves to keep Southampton in the game and then scored the equaliser (technically an o.g.)
The most recent situation was a lack of concentration - right at the end of a game that Southampton completely dominated and Bazunu didn't have anything to do during the entire game. It was a bad mistake - but one that most goalies will make once in their careers. He has to learn from it and be conscious of the stage of the game and where the attacker is when he receives the ball - good as he is with his distribution, he is not good enough to outplay an attacker charging at him every time. Southampton were two up and in injury time you just get rid of the ball - you don't need to try and set up another attack.
Last edited by Jolly Red Giant; 31/12/2023 at 11:58 AM.
Sounds like he went well again today. Has only conceded one goal in his last six home games (the one goal was that disaster moment where he was dispossessed against Plymouth). Hasn't conceded more than a single goal in a game since October and hasn't been on a losing side since September.
He definitely seems to have established himself as a top end Championship keeper at this stage, the interesting question for Baz now will be - if Southampton go up do they stick with him as number 1 or do they bring someone else in?
Last edited by Eirambler; 13/01/2024 at 4:40 PM.
Keane O'Shea Given Best Smallbone
If Southampton are promoted Bazunu will be their keeper in the PL - the question is whether they can hold onto him if they don't get promoted.
At a minimum I could see them bringing in a more experienced type to compete with him, someone much better than Alex McCarthy - in case things go a bit wrong again. If they don't go up I'm sure loads of the bigger teams would be interested, but almost certainly as a number 2 keeper, which he definitely won't want. So I'd fully expect him to continue at Southampton if they don't go up.
Keane O'Shea Given Best Smallbone
If Bazunu goes back into the PL it will be as the No.1 - and if Southampton get promoted you would hope that they would attempt to put a better defence in front of him than they had last year. Martin fixed the defensive problems Southampton had in the first few weeks this season and we can now see the results - Bazunu isn't being exposed - and, like yesterday, he is making 2/3 good saves a game and his distribution is impacting the game.
One of the things that every promoted team needs in the PL is pace - because they will have to rely on the counter-attack to get goals to win and draw games. Southampton do have some pace - and yesterday they showed it, scoring on the counter-attack.
Club record 20 unbeaten now I think. I went onto Twitter to see if there were any clues as to how he played and several posts said he made very good saves at key times.
Not great for Swansea's goal today - floundered under a deep cross - but made up for it with a couple of good late saves to see out a 3-1 win. Smallbone on target (though there was an offside missed in the immediate build-up - not that that's his fault of course) and Manning played the full 90 as well.
Up into second until Monday at least, when Ipswich travel to leaders Leicester. Southampton have Rotherham and Huddersfield next, who don't seem like troubling them.
They're flying now and Bazunu's upturn in form is playing a big part in it, which is great to see.
Keane O'Shea Given Best Smallbone
Does Flynn Downes have any Irish connection? I know he’s played underage for England but I thought I saw him mentioned here before? By Crafty maybe… he’s 24/25 now.
Southampton are now up to second, after seven wins and a draw from their last eight league matches, and on the same number of games played as Ipswich, who slip to fourth.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks