Anton McElhone

Is Maik Taylor still not coaching the keepers?

 

Only contracted until end of the season so that'll need addressing.

 

apologies,I'd forgotten we had him. A bit worrying o donnells form fell off a cliff once we actually got a gk coach lol

 

That's true!

So, have we signed anyone yet? When does Pre-season end?

 

Forgive me if I’m off the mark, as I’ve only been to a handful of games this season.

But the 4 or 5 games i attended in which I saw O’Donnell play between Oct - Dec he was uncertain, made errors and generally looked shaky and I didn’t have any confidence in him, though I kept reading on here that he’s playing well, he’s a good keeper and we ought to keep hold of him etc..

So my genuine question is, what are O’Donnell’s positive attributes (apart from his obvious passion and dedication to the team) as a keeper that make him worthy of another season in Claret & Amber?

 

I think it is hard to tell. He played in one of the worst defensive lineups I have seen. Nevertheless, he is hesitant, has a tendency to stay on his line even when he should come out. Has made some howlers. He has also pulled off some great saves. We are now in LG 2 will we get any better?

 

Beat me to it. Speak to any 'keeper, and they will tell you if you have little faith in those in front of you, it affects your own game. Rather than watch the play, and ball - You end up 'second guessing' your defenders actions, which immediately puts you a yard behind the pace. At our level, it's difficult to recover from that, time and time again.

 

For me your keeper is the man to make calls within the area he sees all infront of him, unfortunatly at our level most keeper are reluctant to command.their box's leaving defenders wondering if the keeper is coming or not.
Maybe its the light balls that make keepers act the way they do.

 

We have had light balls for years, our keeper will not have been alive when we had heavy leather laced up balls lol

 

The light balls may well have an impact Dave. My first 'insight' into 'Keeping was from a few brief conversations with Pat Liney, as a young teenager. Another point ....... When I was a trainer, any lad who showed up for a trial (as a 'Keeper), the FIRST thing I said was "Convince me you have the command of your area, it's your domain, so protect it." Few did

 

Yeah, we should just him him off because he has been poor of late. Let’s get ANOTHER keeper and start the cycle again. When was the last keeper that didn’t get criticised heavily on here?

Maybe we should look at that chap at Man Utd, David deGea? Oh, actually just seen his performances this season, so I’m guessing our fans wouldn’t touch him with a bargepole either...!

 

O Donnell is rubbish. I'm glad people are starting to see this, he only got a free ride earlier in the season because he was a decent cheer leader.

he's not nearly as good as the guy he replaced.

 

They're both decent enough league 1 goalkeepers. Doyle is no better and no worse than O'Donnell, they've both made howlers whilst they've been here. The difference between the two is that Doyle had a fantastic, solid defence in front if him in his first season and a semi competent one in his second. O'Donnell has had absolutely no protection whatsoever.

 

I think the fact that he has been dropped for the last two matches means the writings on the wall for him but we will see

 

Not necessarily. You look at De Gea at man utd and he probably needs dropping for his own good, give him a mental rest from having to put up with shit every week which is why he's dropped clangers recently. He'll come back again strong next season and I hope O'Donnell does too if he's still with us.

 

I believe your right @Park bantam, Bowyer obviously saw O'Donnell was making mistakes so promoted Wilson for the last few games, hard to make a call on Wilson because we've not seen enough of him to make a comparision, unfortunatly for Bowyer he has to either make a call and replace one or the other or both as even at league one level some of the soft goals that have been conceded need to stop.
I'm not sure they can even after making excuses regarding the players in front of them.

 

speak for yourself

 

I think theyre the same tbh, could swap em into mccalls league one team with no difference imo. Theyd cost/save you the same amount of points over a season.

 

Mine are very light, if fact non existent

 

Mrs Floozy’s up to her old tricks again