A Big Thanks To Artur Boruc Saturday, 20th Sep 2014 10:44 Football is a ruthless game and especially ruthless if you are a Goalkeeper as only one keeper can play at any one time. Artur Boruc's Saints career did not get off to a good start that cannot be denied and there are still those that have never forgiven him for his opening couple of games. But when he returned to the side in January of 2013 he did more than virtually any other player in the second half of that season to take Saints from virtual certainties for a quick return back to the Championship in the December to safe in mid table by April. At a time when Saints were struggling in the goalkeeping department with Kelvin Davis not being good enough for the Premier League and Paulo Gazzaniga although putting in several good performances being too inexperienced, with both not having the command to marshall their defence or dominate the penalty area. In came Boruc and things changed, it was still a poor defence, but it now had a bit more confidence and that was down to Boruc. Last season the Polish keeper was as good as any I saw in the Premier league, in the early part of the season he was nothing short of brilliant, his dispaly at Anfield when we beat Liverpool 1-0 was not one of save after save, as older fans will remember at the same ground 30 odd years ago when Ivan Katalinic had one of his few great games for the club in another 1-0 win, but one of making a couple of outstanding saves, but more importantly dominating his area and dealing with crosses, put simply Boruc was not only capable of brilliance, but his main contribution was stopping attacks before they became goal mouth scrambles and inevitably goals. Yes there was the odd blunder, mainly the high profile cock up at Arsenal, but they were far fewer than some would have you believe and overall Boruc had a great season. If their was one position that we didn't need to improve it was probably keeper, however as I said football is ruthless and Koeman had money to spend, signing Fraser Forster was a step forward in that the new keeper is younger and from the games so far as good as if not better than Boruc and i do not say that lightly. When you sign an outfield player you can offer reshuffle a little so that goalkeepers and perhaps full backs aside the incoming man is not always a direct threat to someone individually, for keepers its different, there is only one of them that can play so that when a new one is signed especially for a big fee like Forster, the writing is on the wall, unlike say a midfielder you cant reshuffle and play several, it is one or the other. Boruc knew the writing was on the wall and he didn't like it, it would have been great for him to have stayed and fought for his place, but he knew that was never going to be the case, when a club like Saints sign a player for £10 million you have to play him, Ronald Koeman could have dressed it up and tried to make it seem a fair fight between the two for the place in goal, but he made a decision and he made it quickly, one that his predecessor a year earlier failed to do with then club record signing Osvaldo which sowed the seeds of what was to come. Boruc of course didnt like the managers choice, perhaps also he felt a bit miffed that he as a loyal player in a summer when many had abandoned ship was being treated badly, but he knows football is a ruthless game and in fairness was ruthless himself, at his age he needs to play not sit on the bench and in truth he is too good to sit on a bench, in my opinion he would walk into half of the Premier League sides and would not disgrace any of the other half . Indeed I fully expect Artur to join a Premier League club in January either on loan or permanently. So thanks Artur, you have played a bigger part in our establishing ourselves back in the Premier League than most and you are the most unsung, hopefully the more volatile members of our supporter base will see this and will also see that you have left not like some for money, but to play football, if we did not have those wads of cash to spend, you would still be in our goal this season and still putting in those great displays, yes we have to move on, but that doesnt mean we should forget just what you have done for us. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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