Just Back

Well I didn't see that result coming. Couldn't make the game but a mate who went and his first away game of the season said that was the best we played all season.

Well done to the lads, now need that one point against Colchester or three preferably to hopefully send them down.

Eastwood is more than fine as goalkeeper, as long as his confidence is ok.  

Mistakes happen and in goal is the one position where every mistake is magnified.  The best goalkeepers drop clangers but they bounce back straight away, Eastwood didn't do that in the early stages of the season.  He dropped one and didn't ever look to recover, you could literally see the confidence drain away from him minute-by-minute.

He looks now like the player we had on loan 3 years ago.  But the concern will always remain how long before his confidence leaves him again.  

He needs the sports psychologist who got in Rob Jones' head in the summer of 2005.

Fantastic display, even better result.

Even with such a great win I found it soured a little by my thoughts of 'where was that all season?'.

As dominant a midfield performance as I've seen in a long, long time.  I was wondering from about 20 minutes in how long they could keep that tempo up and they didn't let it drop once, if anything they increased it as the game went on.  

Toby Mullarkey looks a completely different player just by playing ten yards further inside.  3 months ago he was a complete liability who couldn't even figure out how to stand in front of a cross.  Now he's reading the game superbly.  

Kieran Green another.  Moves forward 10 yards, suddenly realises he's got chest control akin to peak Mark Hughes and he's a completely different player altogether.

It's those types of improvement that leaves me encouraged for next season under Artell.

Quoted from diehardmariner

Eastwood is more than fine as goalkeeper, as long as his confidence is ok.  

Mistakes happen and in goal is the one position where every mistake is magnified.  The best goalkeepers drop clangers but they bounce back straight away, Eastwood didn't do that in the early stages of the season.  He dropped one and didn't ever look to recover, you could literally see the confidence drain away from him minute-by-minute.

He looks now like the player we had on loan 3 years ago.  But the concern will always remain how long before his confidence leaves him again.  

He needs the sports psychologist who got in Rob Jones' head in the summer of 2005.

It certainly didn’t help that Eastwood’s individual loss of form and confidence coincided with that of the wider team as a whole. Which came first is a bit of a chicken and egg question.

But I broadly agree with you. When he’s playing well and with a bit of confidence, Eastwood is a decent League Two keeper. He’s big, can come and take crosses and is much better at kicking than any other Town ‘keeper I can remember in recent memory.

But we do know that he is psychologically fragile. Over the course of even the best season, there will be hairy moments and times when the going is not so good. I think it would be a big risk going into next season without another ‘keeper with a decent amount of experience. Eastwood himself still has fewer than 50 EFL games under his belt, despite turning 28 later this year.

I think we need to move away from this approach of having two goalkeepers who both fancy themselves as a number 1. We don’t have the budget to do it effectively for a start - you end up with two 7.5/10 keepers rather than a 9/10 and 6/10 which is what you really need.

If you’ve got two keepers about the same level you’ll always have a manager questioning when & if to change them, there’s always doubt. Same with fans, there’ll always be a view that the keeper should be dropped if they think there’s someone of equal quality sat on the bench.

From the keeper’s perspective surely it’s better to have a clear idea of your role within the squad - I’d rather have a keeper confident they’re starting on Saturday, and a suitable understudy ready to come in at short notice if needed. Given changes to subs/squad sizes we’re no-longer in the position of having one pro keeper and a youth team player like we were previously.

Would surely also help in terms of recruitment, if we could turn around to someone and almost guarantee they’d be starting every week. I don’t buy the idea that having two keepers fighting it out every week develops them, think that’s a bit of a myth & any marginal gain you might get on the training ground is surely less than what you’d gain from having a settled, confident keeper and back line?

There' are very few occasions in my time supporting the club where I can remember Town having two 'keepers who were legitimately going it at it as first choice.

Paul Reece competed with Steve Sherwood but he was always firmly second choice, I think it was only injuries to Sherwood that really saw Reece get his chances.

Jason Pearcey and Paul Crichton in the mid 90's but again, the former was always really second choice and only got an extended run in the first team once Crichton went to West Brom.  

Phil Barnes and Gary Montgomery, definite first choice in Barnes.

McKeown had a few people brought in to compete with him but never really got challenged, Jonathan Hedge and Greg Fleming the ones that I remember.    Then much more recently McKeown competing with Max Crocombe.

Personally I think there's something in having two competing for the shirt, or at least having a legitimate challenge there as well.  I always thought McKeown went stale because his place in the side became too secure.  How it was handled when Dean Henderson took his place is a debate for another day, but it gave McKeown a kick up the bottom and he came back better for it.  Same when Eastwood took his place in 20/21, McKeown was far improved for the final few games that he came back in for.

The issue this season for me is more that we've had two inexperienced (one very and the other relatively) goalkeepers competing for the slot.  It probably wouldn't have proved an issue if we were doing well but we've had quite a few periods this season where we just needed a bit of know-how and guile between the sticks, even more so when we saw the likes of Waterfall leave.  

I've got a feeling we'll bring in a more experienced 'keeper in the summer to compete with Eastwood, but probably start with the No 1 slot in the bag.  If Eastwood moves on I wouldn't be shocked to see Cartwright back here for another year.  He hasn't done enough to merit a move up the ladder (like Andy Smith did) and is still miles off the Hull set-up.