Bye Bye Graeme Smith

[thejackal]

You clearly were not at the Huddersfield game. If you had been, you would not UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, say that "Kippers got sent off stupidly".

Smith's immediate booking was stupid. I mean, that really was stupid.

 

[Knotty]

Video of the goals are up now on bbc.co.uk

Smith looks worse on there than he did on the night. Slow getting to the first goal...........and goes to ground far too early for the second...(when the ball hadn't even reached him...!)

Seeing it live I thought he may have been at fault for the first, but later seeing it on TV, I don't think he was - excellent free-kick, good header.

I agree with you on the second goal, though. Denied himself any chance of saving it by misjudging everything and going to ground much too early.

Very poor attempt at a punch in the second half, but a good double save.

In my opinion he doesn't look confident, and doesn't command anything in his area. He simply doesn't have a 'presence' that a keeper needs and I can't see him suddenly acquiring that. When he is fit again, FDM should come straight back into the team and Gus should be looking to bring in another keeper to really challenge him for the no. 1 spot.

Finding another, better keeper who we can afford is another matter...

 

[Mendoza]

Smith's immediate booking was stupid. I mean, that really was stupid.

I dont think he did anything wrong, he picked the ball up bounced it a couple of times, clapped the Brighton fans and threw the ball back to the spot.

Kuipers was lucky not be banned for more than a game as he would not leave the pitch, berated the ref, wen tback for more and still wouldnt leave the pitch. He wasted 2 or 3 minutes, where as Smith "wasted" less than 20 seconds

 

[Deportivo Seagull]

Seeing it live I thought he may have been at fault for the first, but later seeing it on TV, I don't think he was - excellent free-kick, good header.

I agree with you on the second goal, though. Denied himself any chance of saving it by misjudging everything and going to ground much too early.

Very poor attempt at a punch in the second half, but a good double save.

In my opinion he doesn't look confident, and doesn't command anything in his area. He simply doesn't have a 'presence' that a keeper needs and I can't see him suddenly acquiring that. When he is fit again, FDM should come straight back into the team and Gus should be looking to bring in another keeper to really challenge him for the no. 1 spot.

Finding another, better keeper who we can afford is another matter...

For the second goal he didn't really have a choice, damned if he did, damned if he didn't. I think he took the view that if they didn't clear it (it should have gone off for a corner or throw-in) he would have got it, but somehow it ended up at the feet of the striker.
Let's face it, he obviously has no confidence in the defence and that effects his judgement, obviously it works both ways ....

The flap at the cross was walton-esce, but the double save was brilliant.

The problem with FDM is he's getting more and more injured and we really need a regular keeper, also we seem to be a keepers graveyeard so it isn't going to be easy finding a replacement ....

 

[thejackal]

I dont think he did anything wrong, he picked the ball up bounced it a couple of times, clapped the Brighton fans and threw the ball back to the spot.

Kuipers was lucky not be banned for more than a game as he would not leave the pitch, berated the ref, wen tback for more and still wouldnt leave the pitch. He wasted 2 or 3 minutes, where as Smith "wasted" less than 20 seconds

Kuipers was at least protesting something. Smith was just being stupid, IMO.

 

[Silent Bob]

And I still say we need to see Smith behind a competent, confident defence to truly judge him.

I suppose if you put him behind Chelsea's defence in this league he'd look pretty good, since there would be no shots. As far as I can tell that is the only way he could be good, because he saves nothing.

 

[Acker79]

I suppose if you put him behind Chelsea's defence in this league he'd look pretty good, since there would be no shots. As far as I can tell that is the only way he could be good, because he saves nothing.

Or if you put him behind Chelsea's defence he'd have a solid, consistent defence in front of him, a defence he can predict and work with and know that they would cover a certain area so he can better position himself instead of having to compensate.

He'd be behind a defence that doesn't back off and back off and give opposition all the time in the world to pick out the point they want to shoot in that is most difficult to save.

 

[pork pie]

Kuipers*
Shots: 153
On Target: 78
Goals: 19
Percent of shots scored: 24.36


Smith
Shots: 108
On Target: 60
Goals: 28
Percent of shots scored: 46.67

*I have taken all of the data for Smith from ESPN's soccernet. I took most of the data for kuipers from there, however info for the southampton game was not available from soccernet, so I took it from the seagulls website.

Well, I must that that really is very interesting!

With the same defence in from of the, Smith lets in TWICE as many goals as FDM.

It would be very interesting to see the timescale over which these figures are developed. E.g. in 3000 mins there were 78 shots on target against FDM and in 500 mins there were 60 against Haggis Smith? I feel that the defence is generally less solid without FDM yelling "away" and would like to see how this develops into shots on target per so many mins etc.