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Forster and Davis


Bad Wolf

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Davis hasn't been great this season but he was one of the first names on the teamsheet for three years as we became a European team. There's a reason, even if he's not showing it now.

 

If that's the case, then why did Clyne, Lovren, Shaw, Aldeweireld, Lallana, Lambert, Van Dijk, Fonte, Mane, Wanyama and Schneiderlin all (at the very least) attract interest from bigger clubs whilst absolutely none of them have gone for Davis?

 

Its almost like literally no-one in a neutral position ascribes our success to him. We really ought to tell the Cities, Liverpools and Uniteds how underrated Steven Davis is.

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When is Hassen ready? Forster has cost us so many points this season.

 

Once Dave Watson gets to work on Hassen, he'll deteriorate as badly as all of the other keepers at the club. Whatever you may think of him now, Forster used to be a very good goalkeeper, who kept an exceptional number of clean sheets. He was a massive improvement on Kelvin Davis and I remember how relieved we all were when he came back from injury and replaced Stekelenburg.

 

Whatever Watson is doing to our goalkeepers, it's having a terrible effect on their form and confidence. We need a new goalkeeping coach.

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If that's the case, then why did Clyne, Lovren, Shaw, Aldeweireld, Lallana, Lambert, Van Dijk, Fonte, Mane, Wanyama and Schneiderlin all (at the very least) attract interest from bigger clubs whilst absolutely none of them have gone for Davis?

 

Its almost like literally no-one in a neutral position ascribes our success to him. We really ought to tell the Cities, Liverpools and Uniteds how underrated Steven Davis is.

 

Age bar Lambert. Anyway no one is saying he is a world beater and should be playing for a top 6 team, just a very decent player who is normally extremely consistent. Like most of our players though can't shoot to save his life which is why he isn't good enough for a top 6 six side.

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That's crap Verlaine; you're absolutely locked into your position of Davis as "mediocre" but there has been plenty of evidence in the past 4 seasons that he is a very good attacking midfielder. As S-Clarke points out, the Club is at a point where players like Davis need to be transitioned towards a more part time role with new talent brought in to bolster what is becoming a very average midfield. You might turn your attention to whether the Club is going to bite the bullet and look at replacements for Clasie and Ward-Prowse who are clearly part of the midfield problem. While you're at it you might be able to come up with ideas to resurrect the early promise Hojbjerg showed. And one last thing - calling Steven Davis "Davo" has got nothing to do with lack of objectivity of the player's contributions in the same way that some posters call JWP "Prowsey".

 

A good attacking midfielder would have produced more than 9 goals in 4.5 seasons (130 starts). His assist return isn't much better with only 15 during the same period. Sigurdsson is the usual comparison, but maybe that's a bit unfair, as most people are happy to acknowledge him as the best AM outside of the top six. Perhaps better to compare Davis to someone like Robert Snodgrass, who has managed to produce 19 premier league goals and 11 assists from only 85 starts over the same period. How can you look at a comparison like that, with a player who is pretty much the epitome of lower-table/relegation candidate talent, and not agree that Davis is just average at best? This in itself is quite remarkable - usually it's flair players who excite the most passionate criticism and praise, but for some reason, telling the manifestly obvious truth about Steven Davis is Saintsweb's cardinal sin.

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Let's have a count of hands for the friends/relatives of the Cork, Ward-Prowse (you will have Davis to thank if James saves himself from the hype in the next few years) and Reed families that have posted here...

 

Get over yourselves, enjoy League Two and Clement's great escape with the now rebranded Swansea Soccerball Swans.

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Let's have a count of hands for the friends/relatives of the Cork, Ward-Prowse (you will have Davis to thank if James saves himself from the hype in the next few years) and Reed families that have posted here...

 

Get over yourselves, enjoy League Two and Clement's great escape with the now rebranded Swansea Soccerball Swans.

 

I'd wager there's more chance that you have some sort of learning difficulty than any relative of a Saints central midfielder has ever posted on here with a deliberate agenda against Steven Davis. He's just not that good - no conspiracy required.

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Once Dave Watson gets to work on Hassen, he'll deteriorate as badly as all of the other keepers at the club. Whatever you may think of him now, Forster used to be a very good goalkeeper, who kept an exceptional number of clean sheets. He was a massive improvement on Kelvin Davis and I remember how relieved we all were when he came back from injury and replaced Stekelenburg.

 

Whatever Watson is doing to our goalkeepers, it's having a terrible effect on their form and confidence. We need a new goalkeeping coach.

 

Cannot see how anyone can argue with this.

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Let's just focus on the goalkeeper issue. Fraser Foster has gone from hero to zero fast.. how can the FF we have now be the same person who was MOTM at that away game against Arsenal (seems an age ago)?

 

Some Canadian perspective here...hockey (ice hockey) is the national sport here...my youngest son plays at a decent level...not all positions are equal - the goalkeeper is key...a hot goalkeeper can keep even a terrible team in the game wheras a poor one can make even the best team lose. One of the most important stats for goalies is number of shots saved against shots faced (they only count shots on net)...so a hot goalie will save 35 or 40 shots on target before letting a goal in. If a goalie lets say 3 goals in on 7 or 8 shots they get pulled in the game and replaced by the reserve keeper.

 

Bigger nets, fewer shots yes yes but concept is valid. On Fosters current form, I reckon he lets in 1 in every 2 shots on target. He is TERRIBLE. Honestly, I can pick the ball out of the net as well as he does. Yesterday I blame him for the second and third goals. Second goal he is so slow to move...it's eminently saveable from 25 yards or more...he does the standard late dive and flap (like he did for the Swansea second goal the game before). Third goal he doesn't set the wall or bother attempting to move a muscle for a shot on target. If he'd stopped these it'd have been 1-1 at Swansea and 1-1 yesterday...not great results but not six losses out of seven.

 

Point? The goalkeeper is a disproportionately important position. When they play well they lift the whole team. When they let crap goals in at terrible times they can deflate the whole team. Foster needs to be dropped now and rebuilt. We have over-relied on him being the goalkeeping answer after Davis. We cannot do worse than throwing Moussa in at the deep end.

 

Moussa doesn't sound like the answer to me, hope I'm wrong. I think there is a deeper-rooted goalkeeping issue at the club...the fact we have no proven decent alternative knowing McCarthy is a long-term injury...and we've turned a good goalie into the worst in the PL at the moment IMO.

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Let's just focus on the goalkeeper issue. Fraser Foster has gone from hero to zero fast.. how can the FF we have now be the same person who was MOTM at that away game against Arsenal (seems an age ago)?

 

Some Canadian perspective here...hockey (ice hockey) is the national sport here...my youngest son plays at a decent level...not all positions are equal - the goalkeeper is key...a hot goalkeeper can keep even a terrible team in the game wheras a poor one can make even the best team lose. One of the most important stats for goalies is number of shots saved against shots faced (they only count shots on net)...so a hot goalie will save 35 or 40 shots on target before letting a goal in. If a goalie lets say 3 goals in on 7 or 8 shots they get pulled in the game and replaced by the reserve keeper.

 

Bigger nets, fewer shots yes yes but concept is valid. On Fosters current form, I reckon he lets in 1 in every 2 shots on target. He is TERRIBLE. Honestly, I can pick the ball out of the net as well as he does. Yesterday I blame him for the second and third goals. Second goal he is so slow to move...it's eminently saveable from 25 yards or more...he does the standard late dive and flap (like he did for the Swansea second goal the game before). Third goal he doesn't set the wall or bother attempting to move a muscle for a shot on target. If he'd stopped these it'd have been 1-1 at Swansea and 1-1 yesterday...not great results but not six losses out of seven.

 

Point? The goalkeeper is a disproportionately important position. When they play well they lift the whole team. When they let crap goals in at terrible times they can deflate the whole team. Foster needs to be dropped now and rebuilt. We have over-relied on him being the goalkeeping answer after Davis. We cannot do worse than throwing Moussa in at the deep end.

 

Moussa doesn't sound like the answer to me, hope I'm wrong. I think there is a deeper-rooted goalkeeping issue at the club...the fact we have no proven decent alternative knowing McCarthy is a long-term injury...and we've turned a good goalie into the worst in the PL at the moment IMO.

 

Also we signed a 3rd choice keeper who has played about 5 games since 2013. He is on the bench each week to cover Forster yet is deemed not good enough to play cup games and we slaughter the confidence of our young keeper against Arsenal!

So why was Hassen not on the bench was he as bad in training as Window Cleaner suggests?

 

 

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If Foster has a problem, it is that a man of his immense build cannot get down quickly to balls on the ground near him.

He is usually an excellent shot stopper otherwise. Perhaps he is being targetted with low ground shots.

 

Davis= the criticism is laughable, although I can only watch on TV, this gives one a more analytical and probably better view than at the ground. Saints have been on TV many times this season and I and the match analysts have a very high opinion of him.

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He's generally not that great a shot stopper... his highlights reels mainly consist of him being hit by the ball cos he's so big and in the way (which, btw, is fine because he's keeping the ball out of the net).

 

However as goalkeeper and I'll reiterate this again... it has nothing to do with confidence and everything to do with how well protected he's been in recent seasons. He really isn't very good.

 

McCarthy is the most reliable we've got in terms of ability.

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Forster has been really poor this season. Our system made him look better than he was under Koeman, with the protection in front of the defence we were averaging one of the lowest amounts of shots on our goal in the league. Now we play a little more open at the back he's being found out. He's just not that good.

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I have been ridiculed by friends for years for daring to criticise Steven Davis. I do like him as a player, he is skillful, clever, neat and tidy....BUT....he has been shown to not have enough defensive nous to play in a holding role and often holds us back if playing as the most advanced of the midfielders, due to his appalling shooting ability and play safe mentality. For years I have said play him as the third CM against the tougher teams but when trying to break down WBA/Stoke/Sunderland etc, he just doesn't give us enough in an attacking sense.

 

However, at the moment he is still probably our second best midfielder. Although personally I would play Hojbjerg ahead of him to give us a bit more of a physical presence.

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I'm holding out hope Koeman and Everton are stupid enough to come in for him this summer. Anything over what we paid for him should be taken. He's a very poor keeper

 

 

Why would they do that though. I doubt it was Koeman who wanted Forster in particular. Probably just wanted a supposedly decent keeper and Reed brought his England fantasies to bear.

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Constructive criticism is fair enough but I find unnecessary the constant scapegoating that goes on. I have an image of such posters; either scrawny sparrows legs or chubby little nazis who were always last to get picked for the kick abouts at school. None of our players is without shortcomings but for goodness sake have you never heard of form and confidence?

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Playing devil's advocate here, and I agree with certain sentiments that Forster could do better, but only three goalkeepers have more clean sheets than him this season[/quote

 

 

 

That is simply because of the protection he had in front of him when it was VVD Fonte and ROM ......as soon as he the opposition get a shot on Target its a goal virtually , he has the worst shots on target to conceded in the league now !!!! Carrying an injury and shouldnt be in goal frankly

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Playing devil's advocate here, and I agree with certain sentiments that Forster could do better, but only three goalkeepers have more clean sheets than him this season

 

In spite of him rather than because of him. Our clean sheet record is down to the outfield players and Puel, we concede very few chances.

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He's generally not that great a shot stopper... his highlights reels mainly consist of him being hit by the ball cos he's so big and in the way (which, btw, is fine because he's keeping the ball out of the net).

 

However as goalkeeper and I'll reiterate this again... it has nothing to do with confidence and everything to do with how well protected he's been in recent seasons. He really isn't very good.

 

McCarthy is the most reliable we've got in terms of ability.

 

Totally agree with that first sentence. When he first came back into the team last year the biggest difference he seemed to make was organising the defence and giving them all a bit more confidence, which is why for a while I was reluctant to be too critical of him just for being a poor shot stopper. However I'm not sure if that's still the case. Further more, other 'non-shotstopper' attributes that with his size he should be good at are commanding the area and rushing out for one-on-ones, but he doesn't do either of those well either!

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If Foster has a problem, it is that a man of his immense build cannot get down quickly to balls on the ground near him.

He is usually an excellent shot stopper otherwise. Perhaps he is being targetted with low ground shots.

 

Which makes the save he made at Anfield off his own mistake even more remarkable! The agility and athleticism required to pull that save off was immense, so not sure whether its attitude rather that physical agility.

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If Foster has a problem, it is that a man of his immense build cannot get down quickly to balls on the ground near him.

He is usually an excellent shot stopper otherwise. Perhaps he is being targetted with low ground shots.

 

Which makes the save he made at Anfield off his own mistake even more remarkable! The agility and athleticism required to pull that save off was immense, so not sure whether its attitude rather that physical agility.

 

It was an amazing save. The fact that it was his own immense cock up that necessitated it is of course another story

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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It was an amazing save. The fact that it was his own immense cock up that necessitated it is of course another story

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Yep couldn't agree more, quite why he felt the need to punch the ball as opposed to using the normal and standard goalkeeping technique suggests to me, Fraser is someone who isn't confident in his own technical capability at the moment!

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If that's the case, then why did Clyne, Lovren, Shaw, Aldeweireld, Lallana, Lambert, Van Dijk, Fonte, Mane, Wanyama and Schneiderlin all (at the very least) attract interest from bigger clubs whilst absolutely none of them have gone for Davis?

 

Its almost like literally no-one in a neutral position ascribes our success to him. We really ought to tell the Cities, Liverpools and Uniteds how underrated Steven Davis is.

 

Sorry, picking this up late, but I think age is the main thing. All the players who've left for big clubs, bar Lambert, had significant room for improvement.

 

Besides, he doesn't have to be good enough for a European club to be a great player for us. He was/is perfect for our style of play, not theirs and neutral pundits have recognised that.

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