It’s been a bit difficult to gauge his overall ability when he hasn’t played that many games yet.
I’d say he’s on track to play about 10 games this season.
Revealing how Gerrard said he was a useless goalkeeper and a xxxx in the podcast.
Think your judgements may be the sounder.
Gerrard thought he was useless?
Wow that’s crazy ! Guy was class
Gerrard didn’t say he was useless just the two of them obviously didn’t get along , and Ince was a bit “special” in Gerrard’s opinion.
Given the prankster Gerrard was if Ince was you super disciplined goalkeeper you can see how the two personalities rub each other up. It’s a testimony to DD that he managed to keep the peace in the dressing room the way he did.
In the podcast ‘I Had Trials Once’ Gerrard states that he ‘didn’t rate’ Ince and that he told he was ‘crap’.
His anecdotes bend the truth but shed light on the turmoil in the club at that time.
Thought Tommy was outstanding today. They were literally man handling at every corner and he dealt with it superbly
Agree, he’s a young man but had to deal with some bruising league two players all round him at every set piece today and stood up superbly.
Again , he’s another loan who’ll likely leave a better player than when he arrived. Clubs notice that.
A pride of lions today. Two words that are very apt for that performance today.
At the end of the day we all want to watch good decent football, but this league is full of teams that will do anything underhanded, that will hopefully go unnoticed by officials to get points on the board by any means, but todays ref I thought was very good.
Hes been brilliant since his little wobble, as expected. He looks more solid the more games he plays. Some of the rubbish spouted after a couple of dodgy games hes shrugged off nicely.
His dad was one of the better ones, back in the day, to be fair…
Absolutely earned his clean sheet today.
I’ve given him some stick but really pleased with how well he’s doing and how happy he looks.
One thing i noticed at Accrington (as you could hear it) was how he was barking out orders for 90 minutes. He certainly is not shy.
The more i see from him the more i like him. Walsall ay he. He is much more commanding from crosses than he was 15 games ago too, reminds me of Rushworth, looks better every game.
I absolutely love that shithousery for a timeout as well, inject that into my veins.
Let’s be honest, when you have to survive season after season by relying on loans to complete a squad that’s able of holding it’s own or maybe even better than that competing towards the top end of league two, it’s pretty crucial that the loan players you sign more often than not are having successful spells and their development is on an upwards trajectory otherwise as you say many clubs won’t send their better loan players to your club.I wasn’t being facetious either at the beginning of the post it’s a fact of life that every side at this level has to loan players to create a competitive squad.
After a couple of dodgy games I said somewhere on here that to get promotion your keeper needs to earn you around a dozen points (Walker and Ince were examples I used, the former probably earning us 20 points in 98/99). After Chesterfied, I suggested that Simkin was on minus two which if that continued could cost us promotion.
Really pleased to see us returning to keeping clean sheets and Simkin playing a full part in that.
I’d say he was now plus four. Crucial saves at home against County and yesterday as well as at Wimbledon earning us 6 extra points.
The next couple of months are all about hoovering up as many points as possible in whatever way possible. The fixture congestion means we’ll have knocks and players missing. The weather will be unpleasant as will be the opposition who have predictably decided that we’re a team to be roughed up and shit-housed against (which is a compliment to us by the way).
Simkin is crucial in helping us with that hoovering and I’m so happy for him and his family that he’s vanquishing some of those early doubts and proving idiots like me wrong.
We have to remember he is very young as are the rest of the team with 3 exceptions. It makes us vibrant and very fit but liable to the odd mistake.
He has done well for such a young keeper, Saturday at Harrogate will be a big test they like to load players around the keeper at all set pieces and no Jamma to protect him either
Great shout on how important Jamma is defensively.
The are a few options to mitigate that if we want to worry about their main threat as opposed to trust our strengths.
Rico did a great job at RWB the other night and Mcentee instead of Stirk gives us inches.
Neither Stirk nor Barrett have done anything wrong and neither deserve to be “dropped”. But the roles both perform demand every blade of grass be covered and both have dropped levels a tad. Rico and Mcentee would mean we’d have equivalent of 5 centre backs at set pieces as opposed to four when Jamma plays.
It would also mean we give DJ a much deserved start alongside Lowe without asking him to go miles out of his comfort zone in defending set pieces.