I feel that had Liam Roberts been in goal our points tally would have been higher. Ben Killip was signed from Hartlepool Utd now a national league team and played only 23 league games for them last season in which I think they were relegated from the efl league2. He is 28years old so not a young player on the up in his career and he has not inspired me with confidence since his debut in the first team. When you consider we let two goalkeepers move on in the summer and signed Liam Collins on loan as replacement then due to the Roberts injury we have a goalkeeper who is proving a weak link at times.
We didn't 'let' 2 keepers go in the summer. We made certain in Jan/Feb that Brad Collins would want to go in the summer, by sacking him off for a keeper we signed on loan. Maybe he'd have wanted to go anyway, but we made damn sure he wouldn't want to stay. Isted did well on loan and many say that he was so good there was no way we could bring Collins back in. I disagree, but I accept that view. The consequence of the decision - utterly predictable at the time - was that neither of those goalkeepers wanted to be here this season, and we had to recruit from scratch. The recruitment team deserve credit for the fact that from August to October, that didn't look such a terrible decision as Roberts looked every bit as capable as Collins and Isted, if not more so. But he's not ours, he's not currently available, and at the moment we look weak in that area. Personally, I wish we'd have stuck with Collins in the 2nd half of last season, kept him in the summer and had him in the team right now.
How do you know Collins would have still been here if we had played him regularly? I think history would suggest that most players move on.
Roberts is badly missed. It's got to be something more complex than just a broken finger as he's been out for six weeks now.
I don't understand why the club can't give us a round up every week on injured players like they do loaned out players,how hard is it to do this ?
A lot of the players would probably appreciate privacy while they are trying to recover - especially from a bad injury.
Collins said he should be back next month.. but also Twitter talk that Middlesbrough could recall him in January.. The Bradford keeper we were linked with is out of contract next summer so that could be a possibility in January if Roberts doesn't return for whatever reason
It was hard to stick with a keeper who was out injured for 7 games, hence why Isted was fetched in and in those 7 games Collins missed we won 6, drew 1 and only conceded 3 (to Portsmouth, Port Vale and Derby) So its easy to see why Brad Collins wasn't put straight back into the team. The only time it would've felt acceptable to stick Collins back in was after we conceded a bucket load of goals in the last 3 games of the season, but then you're risking fetching a keeper in who isn't match fit straight into the play offs. After that Isted was always going to sign for us permanently which was confirmed by journalists last summer, except Duff decided to mess the transfer up and go to Swansea. After that Isted decided to sign instead for Charlton.
I’m with you on this. Isted was good - but he came into a winning team and didn’t have the experience Collins had. Even if we did sign him, it was always a gamble. However, I do think that Collins was always going to go anyway - more money in the Championship. But so far, it’s not worked out that well with Coventry…..
When I used to watch pressers, this was always discussed. Was always the first question that Giddings used to ask. Isn’t that happening anymore? Genuinely don’t know as I don’t watch the pressers these days.
The problem for Brad Collins is that Coventry already had a very good keeper when he signed, according to a Coventry fan I know. Unlike outfield players, keepers don't get the chance to come on as a sub and contribute in that way. Barring an injury to the first choice keeper, the bloke on the bench just has to wait for the other keeper to lose form or move on. Luke Steele had to sit on the bench when Heinz Müller was performing so well for us. In my opinion, Collins has proved himself to be a more than capable Championship keeper. I think Killip is very poor, an opinion I formed when seeing him against Tranmere in the League Cup, which has been reinforced since.
