Summer Transfer Window 2025/26

[Weston Super Saint]

1 minute ago, Gloucester Saint said:

 What if Bazunu breaks his wrist on the Friday

Will anyone notice?

[for_heaven's_Saint]

Bazunu spent most of last season out with a serious injury. That happens again and we’re left with 35yo McCarthy playing and our 3rd keeper on the bench. It’s hardly against the realms of possibility we could need him to play. 

[ErwinK1961]

Saw 60+ new posts and thought “here we go, must be some news”

Fck me sideways.

[O_Lord_Marian]

3 minutes ago, Dusic said:

I don't care who the #3 keeper is because they are just a training aid and will never play.

The most reckless thixng Spors could be doing is blowing cash on a 3rd choice keeper, it would be entirely pointless.

A cheap loan makes sense, spend the cash where it is needed.

Would rather keep the young lad Moody as 3rd choice then and save the loan for another player. Bring in an emergency loan should either Bazanu or Mac go down with an injury. Still think we need an upgrade between the sticks.

[AlexLaw76]

Spors' 6 month pre season (so to speak)

so far, Quarshie (dropped), Downs (errr) and looks like this keeper, who was bombed out of the team 92nd in the league

Nice one mate.

[tdmickey3]

1 minute ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Spors' 6 month pre season (so to speak)

so far, Quarshie (dropped), Downs (errr) and looks like this keeper, who was bombed out of the team 92nd in the league

Nice one mate.

Give it time FFS …. something, end of window, something, something 

[Farmer Saint]

21 minutes ago, tdmickey3 said:

Why are we bothering then, at least buy/loan someone competent 

Because we may have Ramsdale back next season as our Number 1. Someone competent is not coming here as our third choice keeper.

Edited 10 hours ago by Farmer Saint

[Matthew Le God]

2 minutes ago, O_Lord_Marian said:

Would rather keep the young lad Moody as 3rd choice then and save the loan for another player.

Dylan Moody at 17 years old needs gametime for the under 21s to develop, not travelling around with the first team. 3rd choice keepers are with the squad on matchdays.

[Farmer Saint]

6 minutes ago, Gloucester Saint said:

Missing the point - agree on prioritising spending but we have had to use third keepers. What if Bazunu breaks his wrist on the Friday and McCarthy wakes up with a back spasm? He’s had back issues.

 We’d have to use someone worse than Tommy Forecast.

Let me just be clear - you are comfortable with that, yes?

If we needed a solid EFL League 1 keeper, there were lots around in June and July at a fraction of the cost.

We had Lumley last season and he was rated as shit by every team that had him. He was fine.

[tdmickey3]

Just now, Farmer Saint said:

Because we may have Ramsdale back next season as our Number 1.

If that comes true and it’s big if we actually get promoted.

Just loan someone remotely competent or not bother

[Badger]

2 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Spors' 6 month pre season (so to speak)

so far, Quarshie (dropped), Downs (errr) and looks like this keeper, who was bombed out of the team 92nd in the league

Nice one mate.

But he’s revolutionised the scouting set up, bringing in some bloke who previously worked at Barclays. 
 

Plus a new head scout from Germany, who’s identified a couple of hot prospects/duds (delete as applicable) from Germany. And clearly his time at Hoffenhrim and experience there gave him a good working knowledge of  third choice GK’s at Norwich.

[Farmer Saint]

1 minute ago, tdmickey3 said:

If that comes true and it’s big if we actually get promoted.

Just loan someone remotely competent or not bother

But they aren't coming to be 3rd string???

[S-Clarke]

Just now, Farmer Saint said:

But they aren't coming to be 3rd string???

Then target someone with the clear ambition that they can replace Bazunu, give them that opportunity to fight for. Put that doubt in Bazunu too.

It's good squad management.

But basically we'll be left with 1 GK as a passable first team GK, and two backups who really shouldn't be on the wage bill of clubs of our size. So Bazunu has zero competition, he knows his place is safe no matter what happens.

[Matthew Le God]

3 minutes ago, tdmickey3 said:

Just loan someone remotely competent or not bother

We need a 3rd choice keeper

[tdmickey3]

4 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

Because we may have Ramsdale back next season as our Number 1. Someone competent is not coming here as our third choice keeper.

So just to be clear you are saying it’s acceptable to loan someone who is not competent?

😂

[S-Clarke]

1 minute ago, Matthew Le God said:

We need a 3rd choice keeper

Make McCarthy third choice, then buy someone as 2nd choice who is good enough to push Bazunu. It really is that simple.

McCarthy shouldn't be 2nd choice.

[tdmickey3]

1 minute ago, Matthew Le God said:

We need a 3rd choice keeper

Yes but they need to be able to be a keeper 

[Harry_SFC]

1 minute ago, S-Clarke said:

Make McCarthy third choice, then buy someone as 2nd choice who is good enough to push Bazunu. It really is that simple.

McCarthy shouldn't be 2nd choice.

It all boils down to that quite frankly ludicrous contract extension we gave to McCarthy upon promotion. 

[benjii]

I'm a good bloke and great to have around the dressing room.

I'm not interested in a pay cut though. 

[MarkSFC]

Presumably the main task for a 3rd choice keeper is during the week on tbe training pitch. I doubt he'll see a Championship match but better to have someone than no-one, especially if the club know AR is back next season IF we go up. 

[Mboto Gorge]

20 minutes ago, Harry_SFC said:

We probably should've just given Lumley a years extension than sign George Long, who is atrocious. TBH Lumley was never that bad when he played for us. 

This is what I don’t understand. By all accounts Lumley is comfortably better than Long, so why on earth are we deliberately downgrading the ability level of our 3rd choice keeper. May as well have kept Lumley surely. The more you see the transfer movements in and out  at this club, the more it becomes apparent that they haven’t a clue what they’re doing. You tend to lose faith in any footballing organisation who goes in to a premier league season with no football expertise at board level and so scratches around for scatter gun transfers between the manager at the time, and a few random board members with no footballing background. Scandalous 

[Farmer Saint]

3 minutes ago, tdmickey3 said:

So just to be clear you are saying it’s acceptable to loan someone who is not competent?

😂

Honestly, I couldn't give a fuck - the chance is he won't play. What kind of keeper do you class as competent? We had Lumley last year and he was derided by every clubs fans who had him so I assume he wouldn't be classed as competent.

[Gloucester Saint]

11 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

We had Lumley last season and he was rated as shit by every team that had him. He was fine.

Not seen George Long play then? Let’s hope that you don’t get to next season…

This isn’t Lumley, who is reasonable league 1, this is Tommy Forecast stuff. 

Edited 10 hours ago by Gloucester Saint

[tdmickey3]

1 minute ago, benjii said:

I'm a good bloke and great to have around the dressing room.

I'm not interested in a pay cut though. 

Can you play in goal?

Its not that important but it would be a bonus

[Farmer Saint]

6 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

Then target someone with the clear ambition that they can replace Bazunu, give them that opportunity to fight for. Put that doubt in Bazunu too.

It's good squad management.

But basically we'll be left with 1 GK as a passable first team GK, and two backups who really shouldn't be on the wage bill of clubs of our size. So Bazunu has zero competition, he knows his place is safe no matter what happens.

So we potentially get left with 3 x 1st choice keepers? We're not Chelsea, players won't stand for that. We couldn't even sell our number one keeper this Summer, let alone trying to sell a couple more next season.

[HarvSFC]

Somehow we're managing to downgrade on Lumley if true? That's impressive.

Keeping an eye on how other clubs are acting in the transfer market and today Stoke signed True Grant, 19 year old goalkeeper, England Under-19 international from Manchester City. He's obviously not going to be their first choice with Johansson there, but he is one for the future and one they hope can grow into becoming their number one. It's what we should have done with Bazunu, have him play backup to a reliable pair of hands in his initial years here, rather than throwing him right into the deep end in the Premier League.

If we're going for a backup goalkeeper I'd much rather we signed a young youth international goalkeeper with the long term hope they can become number one, pushing McCarthy down to third choice, rather than George Long, who we hope never steps out onto the pitch. Although, preferably we'd use one of our many loan spots to get a good goalkeeper for this level in for the season with Bazunu as backup. Isn't McCarthy a great man to have around the squad, isn't that position already filled?

Signing shite squad players who don't improve the first eleven and never will is why we're in this mess and why we have such a bloated squad. Maitland-Niles, Bree, Caleta-Car, Lumley, Holgate and Rothwell. And last summer was particularly bad - Fraser, Taylor, Lallana and Cornet. All these names that when signed you thought, well that's underwhelming. They're not going to improve the eleven, they're just there to fill the squad. And then when they played the level drops considerably. Compare that to Sunderland, whose idea of signing experience is a 32 year old Granit Xhaka from Bayer Leverkusen, who was also a key player in winning the Bundesliga a year before. They also didn't wait until the last week of the window to sign him.

For the last three summer windows those at the club have bemoaned and used the excuse that the squad size is too big and it's affecting our movement in the transfer market, but proceeded to continue to fill it up with crap players and extend the contracts of our most average.

2012-13 we had Kelvin Davis and a young prospect in Paulo Gazzaniga. Neither were good enough, so we levelled up and signed Artur Boruc. We didn't just settle and think, we've got two goalkeepers already, we're looking for a third choice. Bring back that way the club operated. We've been stuck with mediocre goalkeepers for years and the one year we had a good one, the rest of the team was at an all time low.

[Weston Super Saint]

Might as well stick some gloves on Aribo and save a few quid in wages.

[O_Lord_Marian]

10 minutes ago, Matthew Le God said:

Dylan Moody at 17 years old needs gametime for the under 21s to develop, not travelling around with the first team. 3rd choice keepers are with the squad on matchdays.

Fair, and he looked alright in the warm up on Saturday. I suppose the point being, there are plenty of other keepers out there that are a better option than a loan move for an really poor goalkeeper.

[tdmickey3]

4 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

So we potentially get left with 3 x 1st choice keepers? We're not Chelsea, players won't stand for that. We couldn't even sell our number one keeper this Summer, let alone trying to sell a couple more next season.

[saintant]

11 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

Make McCarthy third choice, then buy someone as 2nd choice who is good enough to push Bazunu. It really is that simple.

McCarthy shouldn't be 2nd choice.

Then they'd have to explain to Dragan why McCarthy is on massive wages but has been demoted to 3rd choice. It's a face saving exercise.

[saintant]

9 minutes ago, Mboto Gorge said:

This is what I don’t understand. By all accounts Lumley is comfortably better than Long, so why on earth are we deliberately downgrading the ability level of our 3rd choice keeper. May as well have kept Lumley surely. The more you see the transfer movements in and out  at this club, the more it becomes apparent that they haven’t a clue what they’re doing. You tend to lose faith in any footballing organisation who goes in to a premier league season with no football expertise at board level and so scratches around for scatter gun transfers between the manager at the time, and a few random board members with no footballing background. Scandalous 

I can't recall but I'm assuming Lumley wanted a higher role so asked for a move. He is number two at Bristol City.

[westmidlandsaint]

Shit 3rd choice goalkeeper is so our strikers can bang them in during training and build their confidence. Although worrying they can't bang them past Baz & McCarthy 

[Fabrice29]

48 minutes ago, tdmickey3 said:

Why are we bothering then, at least buy/loan someone competent 

"Dylan often plays with the 21s and we do need three keepers on training at times, so just for numbers I think we'll look to bring someone in," said Still.

"I think it would be tricky or we'd be putting pressure on people that we don't need to put pressure on yet if we didn't, just in terms of numbers.

"But we need to get the profile and the person right, and that person needs to come in and actually help the other two keepers and not create chaos.

"So we're just assessing the situation and trying to get the right person in."

If you want an actual answer it's quite easy to find fwiw.

[O_Lord_Marian]

2 minutes ago, westmidlandsaint said:

Shit 3rd choice goalkeeper is so our strikers can bang them in during training and build their confidence. Although worrying they can't bang them past Baz & McCarthy 

I'll be more worried that they will make him look like a competent keeper.

[benjii]

My friend supports Norwich.

"He has been awful for us. Had to play him last year when Gunn got injured, and he was responsible for fair few goals."

"Got a new gk coach last year and he recommended we get rid of all the keepers, including Long"

"For some reason we gave him a new deal just before that review"

 

Sounds like they need some mugs to take him off their hands!

[Fabrice29]

I do love a signing being written off largely based of opposition fans reviews. Even more so when it's a 3rd choice keeper on loan. Think more recruitment teams should conduct their business based on messageboards and texts from mates tbh.

Edited 10 hours ago by Fabrice29

[Suhari]

6 minutes ago, Fabrice29 said:

"Dylan often plays with the 21s and we do need three keepers on training at times, so just for numbers I think we'll look to bring someone in," said Still.

"I think it would be tricky or we'd be putting pressure on people that we don't need to put pressure on yet if we didn't, just in terms of numbers.

"But we need to get the profile and the person right, and that person needs to come in and actually help the other two keepers and not create chaos.

"So we're just assessing the situation and trying to get the right person in."

If you want an actual answer it's quite easy to find fwiw.

Football is a squad game, and having this type of keeper around is something we've done before. Stuart Taylor made a career of it.

So Long is a shit keeper? Doesn't matter if he isn't on the pitch.

My annoyance here is that clearly Baz will be our numbr 1 this seasonl but that's not Long's fault.

[SouSaint]

Wouldn't it be nice to sign some starting quality for a change.... 

[O_Lord_Marian]

4 minutes ago, Fabrice29 said:

I do love a signing being written off largely based of opposition fans reviews. Even more so when it's a 3rd choice keeper on loan. Think more recruitment teams should conduct their business based on messageboards and texts from mates tbh.

I've seen him play when he was at Millwall a few good times, my eyes sure didn't lie to me. 

Edited 10 hours ago by O_Lord_Marian

[benjii]

Just now, SouSaint said:

Wouldn't it be nice to sign some starting quality for a change.... 

That's cheating.

[Toadhall Saint]

1 minute ago, SouSaint said:

Wouldn't it be nice to sign some starting quality for a change.... 

novel but it’ll never catch on.

[Midfield_General]

31 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

Make McCarthy third choice, then buy someone as 2nd choice who is good enough to push Bazunu. It really is that simple.

McCarthy shouldn't be 2nd choice.

Exactly. There should be proper competition for all places. It's mad to have any player in any position where you and they just assume they are going to get picked every week no matter what. Every player in the team should have someone snapping at their heels so they know that they are likely to lose their place if they don't perform every week. 

Even in the training videos posted by the club after Still joined the new goalkeeping coach was jokingly calling McCarthy 'the old man'. As it stands it's pretty obvious he's not considered credible competition for the no. 1 unless there's an emergency. 

[EBS1980]

We needed a 3rd choice keeper, looks like we are getting one on loan and yet people are complaining. Hopefully he’ll never need to play so good move not signing one imo.

people expecting us to spend money on a new 1st choice keeper obviously play too much football manager.
 

I’m sure you wouldn’t be happy if Will turns round and said we couldn’t sign another attacking mid as we blow the last of the budget on another keeper.

 

It’s been clear GB was first choice keeper and Macca backup so anything other than a 3rd choice signing was never on the table. 

Edited 10 hours ago by EBS1980

[Convict Colony]

I think I will wait until the end of the transfer window and do an assessment then before melting down. 

Weve been cheap on the in's up to today so I expect some juicy spend to happen between now and end of the window.

If not I'll join the revolt and wave my pitchfork from behind my computer screen.

 

[O_Lord_Marian]

1 minute ago, EBS1980 said:

We needed a 3rd choice keeper, looks like we are getting one on loan and yet people are complaining. Hopefully he’ll never need to play so good move not signing one imo.

people expecting us to spend money on a new 1st choice keeper obviously play too much football manager.
 

I’m sure you wouldn’t be happy if Will turns round and said we couldn’t sign another attacking mid as we blow the last of the budget on another keeper.

 

It’s been clear GB was first choice keeper and Macca backup so anything other than a 3rd choice signing was never on the table. 

Not sure I agree, just because we have a need, it doesn't mean you have to fill it will another body, which essentially this is.

For team looking to get back to the prem this season, we should be looking for improvement throughout the squad, this really isn't it.

[saintant]

4 minutes ago, EBS1980 said:

We needed a 3rd choice keeper, looks like we are getting one on loan and yet people are complaining. Hopefully he’ll never need to play so good move not signing one imo.

people expecting us to spend money on a new 1st choice keeper obviously play too much football manager.
 

I’m sure you wouldn’t be happy if Will turns round and said we couldn’t sign another attacking mid as we blow the last of the budget on another keeper.

 

It’s been clear GB was first choice keeper and Macca backup so anything other than a 3rd choice signing was never on the table. 

Signing a rubbish 3rd choice keeper and hoping he never plays sounds like a pretty risky strategy to me. Surely there are better options out there who, if called upon, could be expected to do a reasonable job.

[OneMrsWallace]

1 hour ago, Saint Billy said:

Does Rasmus still being involved with the club help you figure it out?

I get your point but ultimately if we're being lied to/misled that is a real concern. Witnessed that first hand with Wilde and his muppets all those years ago and that didn't end well. 

[HarvSFC]

Why should we just accept not replacing Ramsdale? One of our better players last season. Obviously we're not going to get a like for like replacement, but we can get a top end Championship quality keeper. Would be like selling Dibling and Fernandes this week and replacing them with Fraser and Sesay in the side and then signing backups to those two.

I know Ramsdale hasn't left permanently as of now, but there's nothing stopping us from filling his position in with a first choice loan, rather than a third choice. Ramsdale to Bazunu is a big drop off.

The fact we're using one of the loan spots on a third choice goalkeeper is just a waste.

[saintant]

Just now, HarvSFC said:

Why should we just accept not replacing Ramsdale? One of our better players last season. Obviously we're not going to get a like for like replacement, but we can get a top end Championship quality keeper. Would be like selling Dibling and Fernandes this week and replacing them with Fraser and Sesay in the side and then signing backups to those two.

I know Ramsdale hasn't left permanently as of now, but there's nothing stopping us from filling his position in with a first choice loan, rather than a third choice. Ramsdale to Bazunu is a big drop off.

The fact we're using one of the loan spots on a third choice goalkeeper is just a waste.

That might happen 🙂

[obelisk]

I'm amazed that so many on this forum have been following the fortunes of a 'keeper playing for the reserves of a distant club. Great attention to details chaps.