Summer 26 Transfer Rumours

Not my take either.It sounded to me as though he was looking for a keeper of equal quality to Walker,and the two of them could fight it out,which does not really suggest a definite upgrade coming in.

 

Interesting. “I have every confidence Sam will understand “ ie there has been no direct talks with Sam.

 

Sounds like it's a good job Walker didn't get injured in the last couple of seasons as reading between the line Alexander didn't think Hilton was good enough.

 

Not if you take it literally. “Sam will understand” as opposed to Sam understands… future tense , past tense.!

 

Look what happened at both Stockport and Huddersfield . They played different keepers at different parts of the season and conceded goals for fun. Addai /Hinchcliffe and Goodman / Nicolls. Their fans not enamoured with all four.

 

Also depends on when this interview was done too? I cant imagine GA would let Walker find out by clicking the T&A link this morning whilst on holiday. They've probably had a conversation or at least a chat around expecting some fight for the place before they all went on holiday.

 

You would hope so …I don’t see GA being a poor man manager. It’s poorly worded though . We need an upgrade , who provides that upgrade we will have to wait. My only issue is Walker won’t get any better which leads to a more than obvious solution . A great servant, undeniably .

 

I think we’re reading far too much into this.
The only take for me is it implies he didn’t feel Hilton was good enough or ready to be trusted in league games (anyone who saw the Doncaster game in the cup will understand that)
Every club would like, and should have, either a trust worthy back up keeper or two similar standard who are both good enough
I don’t think anything here implies Alexander doesn’t trust him, regardless of whether some fans feel we need to improve on Walker
(he made a couple of mistakes over the season but has largely been a very solid keeper for the last two years or so in my opinion)

 

We need at least viable competition which i guess was the point of the interview. It could well still be Walker, but he needs someone on the bench to push him. Overall in the season he had 14 clean sheets which sounds great on paper, but as we came to crunch time, he had 3 clean sheets in his last 17 games and they were against 3 relegated and pretty toothless teams. I know clean sheets aren't just on a keepers performance, but a good keeper will always get his CS stat lobbed out and same with a bad one. Statistically and on the eye, Walker was a great L2 keeper and a decent L1 keeper. His save percentage was the 16th best in L1, the goals prevented Opta stat (which is basically xg for keepers) says he should have conceded 1.5 fewer goals that he did from the changes that went in. And his distribution is rough at best.

I don't think Walker is a bad keeper at all, i think he is a very serviceable keeper at this level and has been a great City player. But there's no getting away from the fact that as the season went on, we did struggle to keep teams out and it felt like the first meaningful attempt teams had against us was ending up in the back of the net. If we were happy to be a 12th-18th placed L1 side, i think Walker can easily be that dependable keeper at this stage in his career, but if you want to kick on i don't think he is that man.

 

Walker's distribution seemed to fall off a cliff towards the end of the season.

I never noticed it much before, which is a good thing, then he was ballooning the ball out of play left, right and centre.

Not sure what happened.

 

We need 2 solid keepers maybe Walkers odd dodgy game was down to not having his place under any threat at all

 

I've also heard the kid Matty Young who was at Salford is on our radar, if he's half the player Pickford was for us that season it will be interesting, I doubt Sunderland would want him playing second fiddle to Walker, but for me you can't guarantee him being an automatic starting place unless of course he's performing well enough to keep Walker out, but competition is always healthy.

 

For me it changed after that worldy from the Barnsley player. He was poor after that one. Seemed to lose confidence. His right hand side seemed very suspect to my eye. Competition is good.

 

Yeah, that's pretty much how I read it. I didn't read it as we are looking for a new starting keeper, more that it's still Sam's shirt for now but he's going to have stiffer competition than Hilton.

 

If money was no object, i'd be going to Stevenage to try and get their keeper Marschall. He looked unreal last season against us and really impressive whenever i saw them on tele, think he's only young too. Google says he signed a 2 year deal last summer at Stevenage. I'd imagine that lads next move is to the Champ for a decent fee.

 

Odin Bailey heavily linked with Sheff Wed.

 

Everyone is at the moment.

 

The guy who invented the rumour on the Weds side is a known WUM, other Weds fans have shot it down so far as nonsense from a known billy bullplopper. Although i wouldn't be surprised to see him end up somewhere like that on a decent whack.

Stockport fans had a rumour that he had an offer on the table that would blow their contract out the water. Nobody seems to know a thing about Wednesday yet, i think they have like 4 or 5 players contracted for next season? A fair few actual reputable people are saying they are bringing in Andy Rinomhota.