Martin's comment on the keeper situation makes no sense.
First, for every professional footballer there is game #1. They don't know shit having never experienced the "big" game, at whatever level it is. In game #1, they have to rely on their innate technical ability and football intelligence. It is presumed that they are physically and mentally ready otherwise what's the point.
Martin has played Fisher in preference to Benda last season, and at the start of this season until it became untenable to do so. Fisher was granted plenty of rope to get experience.
Fisher is 25 years old and 6'2. Yet he plays like he's 5'9, and makes errors that boggle the mind. Clearly, the 101 games in the EFL, FA Cup and League Cup don't count for shit. In the Experience v Ability see-saw, experience is not covering his deficiencies. He has played 37 games in the Championship at the cost of 1.73 goals per game (
), and L1, 62 games at a cost of 1.26 goals per game. For us there have been 7 clean sheets, so when the opposition scores, they do so at 2.13 goals per game. With these GA ratios, we either have to put a stone wall around him or have to score 2 goals per game just to draw. We have managed to erect a stone wall just 7 times.
In non-senior leagues (PL2 and FA Youth Cup), a total of 64 games, 79 goals at a cost of 1.23 goals per game,
Fisher is not being developed to cash in down the road.
Let's look at the "Kid". 22 and 6'1. Never played a senior game. His numbers in PL2 and FA Trophy are 69 games, at a cost of 1.48 goals per game, with 22 clean sheets.
I can sort of see why Martin is doing what he's doing, but FFS experience is not getting it done. I'd rather play the Kid now, before the Cardiff match, and see if he has the mettle. I can now see Martin's thinking that led to the snipe at Execs/Ownership in the Millwall post-match when he said that the Club didn't sign a keeper at the end of the transfer window. (Do you think that went unnoticed by ownership).
Question: has the Kid failed to make the grade in training? If so, why put him on the bench instead of Webb. That makes no sense either. Is Webb worse than that?
Martin is fighting for his life. He knows it. He's going with his pet because that's all he thinks he has. Bottom-line: we are relying on not being relegated and not being humiliated by Cardiff on a keeper who's only in goal because the manager believes that there's "nobody" else. And, a keeper with whom we have to score 2 to draw and 3 to win.
One last laugh: in the Bristol pre-match, Martin states that Fisher has been doing better with the ball at his feet in the last three games.
. That's because he stopped fucking around and started playing it long most of the time when we're being pressed. Funny how applying common sense now counts as doing better.
