Voting closes tomorrow. Unfortunately, there's only two serious options for me personally, but the man I've voted for was signed partly due to fan pressure in the summer, then dropped almost immediately to 3rd choice and subsequently lost some form early on. However, his actions this calendar year have kept us in many a match with only a couple of minor glitches. Good luck Luke! Who've you voted for and why?
O'Grady. Scored crucial (well, I guess they aren't now) goals, often had to plough a loan furrow, dragged about by defenders. Always run himself into the ground.
It's Chris O'Grady. 40 games, he's basically carried us in an attacking sense. 14 goals in a side that doesn't create chances and only lost form when he looks knackered after all the graft of the previous games.
When you said 2 options I assumed you meant O'Grady & Cranie. Whilst I'm a fan of Steele I can't consider him an option as he had his worst spell at the club between August & December IMO. I think the problem with one of these votes is people take into account recent form more than the full season which is why even M'Voto's been mentioned by a few fans
Worst spell between August and December? Aye, he hardly played... I voted for Steele. That was before Saturday where he was immense once more and stopped us getting a deserved thumping. O'Grady is his only challenger, but once more Saturday he looked piss poor. I can only assume he's spent, after carrying us whilst Steele was ignored. Any other winner and I'll laugh my sack off. Martin Cranie? Aye. Oreight.
Both good calls ( Jennings was my 2nd thought and would have been up there for me if he'd been in the mix for longer). My thing with COG this year is that he's not been able to play to his best due to team tactics, which for a lot of this season has seen him placed with his back to goal on the edge of the centre circle; inevitably followed by a push from behind and no free kick (due to him being muscly/ a Barnsley player?!) and no support beyond him when he does win through. His confidence has seemingly suffered as a result as the season has worn on leaving a frustrated individual and I feel he was due for a rest a couple of months ago, unfortunately we had no serious alternatives at the club to enable this (although I think he did actually drop at one point for a match or two?). On the rare rare occasion he's been fed through on goal by someone (Yeovil away springs to mind) he's shown that as we know, he's a perfectly capable championship striker and an assert to the club. However, I would say that the two pens he missed were golden opportunities for us. Hopefully his talent will be allowed to shine through for us again next season against a different type of opposition.
you love putting statistics on whitey. How many goals per game as steele conceded this season? Butlands been our best goalkeeper this season by some distance.
Had his two pens gone in we'd have a good chance of staying up with a win on Saturday, but then again we can point to plenty of individual moments that could have kept us up. I've voted for Steele, although O'Grady would have probably got my vote had we played any other way than lumping it to hid head for the past few months. The third choice would be a long way behind those two.
Steele was poor early on partly due to reasons discussed above, but it was hardly his worst spell with us, remember that period a few years ago when he tried clearing from the byline twice in a few months and got caught out!? (Ipswich away was it?) he had a really rough patch around there. He also struggling just before and after muller was around ( but not during!) On the whole though I think we'd have struggled to keep a better keeper at the club for longer and he's been a real asset to us.
Don't see Steele as an option - how can you vote for him when, in your own words, he hasn't played half of the season? PS - it's Chris O'Grady.
If you're using goals conceded as a way to slag off Steele, how can you say Cranie is a good laiker? Seeing has he's played more games than Steele including, from memory, every single game we've took a good hiding in?
I can't help but think people are going overboard in their praise for Steele in response to the criticism HT gives him when the truth is somewhere in the middle. I know he got injured, I can't remember when exactly which is why I spread it out. His performances weren't good however which is why he was dropped before his injury, he's been back to his best in 2014 though. Don't get what your point is on Cranie, he's been consistently one of our better players for the past 2 seasons. He'll never stand out like a striker or a goal keeper will but our problems have been due to a poor midfield & poor full backs & not our centre backs.
Because he's the goalkeeper. He's meant to be this great shot stopper, top be that dyson then surely he'd have to stop shots and by doing that is goals conceded per game would be less. I'm going through the games now and it's annoying me how many i remember him making mistakes. First shot against wigan, blackpool when he didn't come off his line. Should have come off his line against charlton and he would have cleared it 3 goals which would hve got us 3 points.
Has he really? Can't say I was that impressed with Butland either, good shot stopper like Steele but weak in the same area's as Steele as well
I can't be arsed to spend all afternoon adding up all our goals conceded as it will only depress me. However, I do remember Butland making several mistakes and he continued to make them later in the season at Leeds. I don't think you can judge a goalkeeper solely on goals conceded, since that obviously depends on the quality of the whole team. If Luke Steele had been Leicester's keeper the entire season, they would probably still have gone up and he would have conceded far fewer goals than he did for us. Conversely, if Butland had been our keeper for the entire season we would probably still have gone down. You can't judge keepers like that. Luke Steele player of the year by a country mile for me.
