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Saints Set To Agree Deal With Keeper

According to sources, as the saying goes, Southampton are about to agree a new contract with goalkeeper Alex McCarthy, therefore putting an end to the speculation that he might join Liverpool.

This has been a strange season for Alex McCarthy, due to his inability to play tippy tappy football with his feet, he found himself 3rd choice keeper for most of the campaign and then when Gavin Bazunu suffered an injury in the warm up against Preston, found himself jumped into the team, despite that fact that he hadn't even been named on the bench.

On reflection this can be seen as a pivotal moment of the season, not because of his performances, in truth conceding 8 goals in the 3 games, after his surprise recall, including a 5-0 drubbing at Leicester this was not his or the teams finest moment.

But because it meant that Russell Martin had to adapt his possession football game and we could no longer play it to the maximum, this was no bad thing and after we had got those initial 3 games out of the way, we suddenly looked a team that was happy in playing the way it now was.

Right up to the moment of his return from exile, most had assumed that McCarthy would be leaving at the end of the season with his contract up and allegedly being one of the highest earners with Liverpool being touted as the most likely destination with back up keeper at Anfield Caoimhin Kelleher, himself linked with a move to St Mary's, likely to leave.

But now it seems that McCarthy might be staying teamtalk claiming that the keeper has been in talks with Saints about a new deal and that both parties are close to finalising the deal.

That is news that will stir up a mixed reaction amongst Southampton supporters, on one hand most would consider him a ok back up, but on the other, to be blunt, if we are intending to play what will be at best 3/4 of the season with McCarthy in goal and then bring back Gavin Bazunu near the end of the season, that with respect to both keepers does not look the ideal game plan.

It should be remembered that in his 8 seasons at the club McCarthy has managed just 129 regular season League games and has never gone a whole season as the undisputed number one, in comparison, Gavin Bazunu has played 73 games in just two seasons.

History shows us that during his career McCarthy has been able to put in some good periods of performances, but he seems to lack the concentration and application to be able to keep up those standards over an entire year.

On the plus side if McCarthy was to be considered the new number one for next season, then it would mean a virtual abandonment of the possession football game to the extend that Russell Martin played it until McCarthy's arrival back in the team with 5 games to go.

It was always going to be hard to implement anyway, we struggled to play it against Birmingham City away, so how we would fare against Manchester City is not worth thinking about, in that matter Leicester City showed us a glimpse into the future last season.

So yes sign up Alex McCarthy as back up, but if we are going to use him as first choice from the start of the season, we could well be in trouble, we need an experienced goalkeeper at the peak of his game, someone who can organise and is solid.

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