In the first of our look back at last season promotion we start with the last line of defence and our goalkeepers Kelvin Davis & Bart Bialkowski.
Many will think that I will use this piece to run down Kelvin Davis, far from it, although I feel that his first half of the season was not great, in the second half of the season, like the season before, Kelvin came good and in the main put in a series of good displays after we had turned into the New Year, making some crucial saves at vital moments.
However there were still areas of his game that he lacked in, namely the command of his box, we were a team that spent a lot of time ion possession due to our passing game, this meant that most of our goals were conceded either by teams on the break or from set pieces, Kelvin's job had evolved due to this way of playing and he had to adapt from being a keeper that was a good shot stopper, to one that had less to do in the traditional areas but more in others, one on one Kelvin was excellent, on more than one occasion he saved us, not so good though wa shis distribution, in the first half of the season especially, often kelvin would struggle with playing to a set system, at times it was almost as if he was told he would be fined if he kicked long and because of that often we played ourselves into trouble, as the season went on he became more comfortable with it though.
In the season Saints conceded 46 league goals which at an average of 1 a game was as good as most in the division, however I think there are a couple of areas of concern here, not least the fact how many of them were conceded against the other 9 teams in the top ten, on the road we let in 16 in those 18 games, keeping only two clean sheets in the process, add to that the 10 goals we let in, in the home fixtures against them and a pattern emerges, at home especially we rarely gave other teams a clear shot at goal, but too often when a team did put pressure on us we cracked too easily, tis was the case last season as well, if you look back at that, on too many occasions our golas let in to shots on target ration was far too high, Reading for instance had four shots on target and scored three times, Pompey three and two goals.
On the surface we defended very well for most of the season, but we still gave away too many goals, for a keeper regarded as a great shot stopper, Kelvin let in far too many as a percentage of shots on target, m not saying this was all his fault, in fact I blame the defence far more, however if we want to survive and even prosper in the premiership, we have to look at this and improve, the stats show that the better sides averaged almost two goals a game against us when we played away to them, these werent great sides, if we dont learn and learn fast we could be in for some drubbings on the road.
All in all I would say that Kelvin had a decent season, he wasnt the best keeper i saw in this division, but he was nearer the top of the list than the bottom, he did a good job for us.
Bart Bialkowski only played one league game and he was much maligned for it, however the fact of the matter was despite a howling error in the game, he still kept the ball out on other occasions, and the point against Blackpool in that 2-2 draw gave us a cushion come the end of the season, I am not going to make a case for Bart as the future of Saints, I believe that he has perhaps been here too long, he needs a fresh change of scenery and a chance to prove himself in front of supporters who have no pre conceptions, the fans who lambasted him for this one error have short memories, most of Bart's games have been decent, indeed the lovers of Kelvin Davis, forget that in his first two seasons here he was appalling, in his third we were relegated with one of the worst goals conceded columns, however this was the making of Kelvin, he had a lot of shots hit at him and although he let in a lot, he saved a lot as well, it gave him the opportunity to come good again, for a keeper its easier to impress in these circumstances than in our current one, where the keeper was redundant for large chunks of the game before being called into action.
All in all a big pat on the pack to both for differing reasons.