With help of Mr MadJohn's fine site I've looked into both keepers records at Pools and it obviously doesn't make pretty reading;

Budtz has played in goal on 34 occasions for Pools. He's kept 6 clean sheets and conceded 45 goals at 1.32 per game.

ALB has played on 31 occasions for Pools. He's kept 3 clean sheets (yes that's 3) and conceded 55 goals at 1.77 per game.

So yesterday we shipped our 100th goal since the Big Greek departed. Ben Clark and Micheal Nelson had been rocks in that previous season with a dependable keeper behind them, in fact keeping clean sheets in half of the league games.

So based on that old cockfingers is better at keeping the ball out of the net than ALB. At the moment it appears that a lot of the efforts on target against us end up in the back of the net. I think Budtz is more out and out howler prone but he's also more likely to actually make a good save and should be playing, I don't care how shite he is he's the best we've got.

So in summing up....





FFS DANNY SIGN A KEEPER

PJ. I respect you. But you are starting to sound like Tree/Grave/Rev. We all know we need two new keepers!

The bit at the end was meant to be a joke, the point I was making is that statistically we have a better goalkeeper at the club than the one who is currently playing. We'd be better with Budtz until January.

The thing that has always staggered me in this argument is that most people seem to champion the idea that if the centre backs are shit, it's the goalkeepers fault. When the centre backs are OK, it's fine pairing in central defence.'

Here's an important thought, right?

For Fleetwoods second goal, the ball came RIGHT over the top and left the midfielder one on one, who duly scored. As did Leeds the week before.

How's that the keepers fault??

The centre backs have been rightly hammered Mr Spender by most people of here, I seem to remember Nelson being compared to faeces not so long back.

You couldn't blame ALB for either goal yesterday but sometimes keepers pull defenders out of the shit in that situation, when the lad shot he had barely got out of his six yard box aren't you supposed to narrow the angle? On two occasions he failed to come to edge of the area when it was easy to and Nelson had to clear hurriedly when all it would have taken is a bit of communication, he flapped at crosses and generally put his team mates under needless pressure. He then let himslef down by retaliating. His overall performance was about four out of ten.

Those stats suggest Tree was right about ALB been even worse than Budtz

Although i'm not making excuses for ALB, for the first goal yesterday he did start to move off his line quite early but slipped on the shiite pitch, that probably cost him 2-3 yards and a possible save.

However i do agree that we need 2 new keepers, sooner rather than later.

and if not Dimi, why not try David Stockdale? he is on loan to Rotherham at the minute and i'm sure he would be good enough for League 1

I wonder if Barry Watling has kept himself fit.....

Roy Tunks may be available assuming he is not playing in Serie A or something

They both shit surely Cook must be better than these.

another one who was brought in for the future

Hes 19 if hes good enough hes old enough. Theres better keepers in the northern league than the two weve got.

I said yonks ago that Budtz was better than ALB and you all mocked me.

Nice to see the stats backing me up.

I can remember ALB making about 3 decent saves in his spell in the team. He isn't good enough. He never pulls the team out of the shite, he is a conference keeper at best....!

there isn't a Conference team who would ahve him either IMO.
His standard is probably Wearside League, and that's no exaggeration, Barrett the same. Piss piss piss poor the pair of them, a more woeful situation is hard to imagine

Thing is I think they are nothing like each other at all. Budtz dropped some awful clangers and I mean awful but about 1 or 2 every 6 or 7 games id say. The rest of the time he actually SAVED shots (some great svaes which were soon forgotten) and very few times did I think "he should have done better there". With ALB he doesnt drop huge clangers but is at fault for nigh on a goal a game and cannot make any saves other than ones straight at him.

So in short Budtz makes less errors but they usually stand out more.

Neither are of Dimi's quality but if we want to keep clean sheets and actually see a keeper make something called a "save" then sorry but we need Budtz in goal ahead of Barrett.

I don't see how you can rely on bare stats without finding out the sorts of goals conceded. Some goals are unstoppable and some are the result of errors other than goal-keeping errors

You cant rely fully, agreed. But they can be used as a guide.

You mean that you can use them to back up any given argument depending upon how you present them!

Why did alb keep spitting on his hands when he elbowed that geezer on saturday?

Just looked weird.

Maybe he expected to be sent off so thought Budtz would need the extra grip in his gloves?

At Cheltenham last season Budtz made an unforgivable mistake just before half time that went through his fingers and got Cheltenham back in the game when they'd never threatened.

He then made two or three absolutely superb saves in the second half to keep the score at 1-1.

It makes you think that if Barrett had been in goal that day; he'd have probably saved their equaliser but we'd have ended up losing because he doesn't have the ability to make quality saves.