Alex McCarthy

[FarehamSaintJames]

He's piss poor. End of. Probably the weakest keeper in the league.

But in today he isn't the sole blame, defensively down the middle we are poor.

[Baird of the land]

Made 2 decent saves today. No fault for the goal for me, yes he ends up slightly left of centre but no chance of saving that regardless of where he is stood.

[S-Clarke]

Are we really going to micro analyse every goal we concede to see if we can attribute it to a fault by McCarthy? That is going to get incredibly dull. In fact it already has.

[cloggy saint]

1 hour ago, Barsiem said:

Is it just me or was McCarthy standing no where near the centre of the goal for Jimenez’ winner today?  He basically gave him an open goal today!

It's just you.

[Barsiem]

Ha!  Fair enough everyone, the replay I saw looked off but if I’m wrong so be it!  

People here are sensitive though

[Matthew Le God]

51 minutes ago, Baird of the land said:

No fault for the goal for me, yes he ends up slightly left of centre but no chance of saving that regardless of where he is stood.

If he stood directly in front of where it went he'd have had an outside chance of saving it.

[LGTL]

No point analysing every single goal we concede. He’s one of the poorer PL GK’s, if not the poorest. Nothing we can do about it if we insist on him starting every week. 

[Whitey Grandad]

2 hours ago, skintsaint said:

hard to blame him today for his shot stopping ability, claimed a few crosses. Distribution was awful though.

Yep. I don’t blame him for their goal though. We had plenty of chances to get the ball away.

There is a long article on him in The Times this morning. I don’t know why that should be.

[Lee On Solent Saint]

Absolutely agree he is one of the weakest keeper's in the Premier League, kicking is just about the worse I have seen from a keeper. Even if you can't get the direction right on a kick, a keeper should have at least the ability to whack it up field. McCarthy seems incapable of doing both.

[Rickman42]

All of the negative comments about the Chelsea game are boring…one of the positives seems to be Alex McCarthy finding some of his old form 🙌🏼
 

Made some terrific saves today…I know 99% of fans have given up on him but he’s been playing pretty well lately to be honest

Edited 2 October, 2021 by Rickman42

[Saints foreva]

That save from Werner was unreal. 

[Fabrice Fernandes no.1 fan]

2 minutes ago, Saints foreva said:

That save from Werner was unreal. 

Agreed! I thought that is the kind of save that Forster usually makes but Macca doesn’t, so if he can keep some shot stopping form for me he stays as number 1

[Minsk]

1 hour ago, Rickman42 said:

All of the negative comments about the Chelsea game are boring…one of the positives seems to be Alex McCarthy finding some of his old form 🙌🏼
 

Made some terrific saves today…I know 99% of fans have given up on him but he’s been playing pretty well lately to be honest

Absolutely. I'm not a McCarthy and generally prefer FF but credit where it's due, he made some good saves today. On top of the excellent save at the death against City, he deserves his place in the team.

Well played Macca.

[rooney]

He did well today in some terrible conditions for a goal keeper.

[Uncle Albert]

Doesn’t really surprise me, he has been excellent so far this season.

 

[Billy the Kidd]

This clearly isn’t right - I thought we had a number of experts telling us we will be relegated with AM in goal this season…

[Billy the Kidd]

Interesting to see Nick Pope low down on the list, he played a blinder on Saturday, hooping he reverts to seasons form for our game.

[Saint Garrett]

He's definitely turned a corner after a very poor season last season. The clubs decision to stick with him, and get him to sign the new contract seems to have settled him down.  Still would like us to invest in a better keeper next summer, but would be happy for them to battle it out as no 1.

[Ivan Katalinic's 'tache]

Interesting stat about 1v1s. Maybe he feels more confident with Salisu in the backline instead of the lumbering Vestergaard? Must be a reasonable sense he doesn't need to start so far forward in the box for 1v1s with Salisu's far better pace and recovery compared to Jannik watching each forward disappear into the distance in front of him...

[TWar]

5 hours ago, Uncle Albert said:

Doesn’t really surprise me, he has been excellent so far this season.

 

Good numbers from 1v1's but his generic saves vs expected he is 14th in the league with -0.7. Good skill to be able to do well in 1v1's but his general goalkeeping is still mediocre. Better than last year though.

[John Boy Saint]

Blimey!................. if only there were just 2 players on the pitch for a game .............:-)🤪 

[Fabrice Fernandes no.1 fan]

27 minutes ago, John Boy Saint said:

Blimey!................. if only there were just 2 players on the pitch for a game .............:-)🤪 

Wouldn't have to worry about his distribution then either, if he has no-one to pass to

[richard799]

Time Ralph selected FF. AM distribution is shockingly poor, before ball leaves keeper 9 out 10 it either is kicked to opposition or out of touch. Every kick pass counts, end product counts. Yesterday slow down to Burnley 2nd goal scored from range looked like it could been stopped if more outstretched, quicker to see read shot.

For such key position AM is costing saints, wake up smell roses give FF some game time for FF to build some confidence again, he does hold longest run no goals conceded, and is better of the two.

 

[Whitey Grandad]

26 minutes ago, richard799 said:

Time Ralph selected FF. AM distribution is shockingly poor, before ball leaves keeper 9 out 10 it either is kicked to opposition or out of touch. Every kick pass counts, end product counts. Yesterday slow down to Burnley 2nd goal scored from range looked like it could been stopped if more outstretched, quicker to see read shot.

For such key position AM is costing saints, wake up smell roses give FF some game time for FF to build some confidence again, he does hold longest run no goals conceded, and is better of the two.

 

I agree with you about FF. I am not a great believer in McCarthy and have often criticised him but having seen the replays of yesterday I find it hard to criticise him for their second. It was a dipping shot that went just inside the foot of the post.

I would have liked to see a goalkeeper come and clear the cross for their first goal but such keepers are rare to find.

[Lord Duckhunter]

They’re both toilet so we can’t keep having this “he should be playing instead ” every single time a goal goes in, or we don’t win. McCarthy has actually done better this season and has done nothing to deserve being replaced by FF. Lurch may have saved this one, or that one, but he’d have let others in, as they’re both much of a muchness. I doubt results would have been any different. McCarthy is here for the long run, FF ain’t, it’s perfectly reasonable and understandable he’s the number 1 and it doesn’t help anyone, least of all the back 4 to keep chopping and changing. 

[Turkish]

7 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

They’re both toilet so we can’t keep having this “he should be playing instead ” every single time a goal goes in, or we don’t win. McCarthy has actually done better this season and has done nothing to deserve being replaced by FF. Lurch may have saved this one, or that one, but he’d have let others in, as they’re both much of a muchness. I doubt results would have been any different. McCarthy is here for the long run, FF ain’t, it’s perfectly reasonable and understandable he’s the number 1 and it doesn’t help anyone, least of all the back 4 to keep chopping and changing. 

Hasn’t some genius come up with an expected save formula so we can do a proper comparison?

[The Cat]

2 hours ago, Whitey Grandad said:

I agree with you about FF. I am not a great believer in McCarthy and have often criticised him but having seen the replays of yesterday I find it hard to criticise him for their second. It was a dipping shot that went just inside the foot of the post.

I would have liked to see a goalkeeper come and clear the cross for their first goal but such keepers are rare to find.

Agree about the second goal. It was a great strike and maybe one of the top keepers in the league would have saved it but even that is up for debate. That goal goes down as poor defending from Bednarek.

First goal he would have rightly been expecting a defender to be challenging for that header. If he'd come for it and got nowhere near he'd have looked pretty silly, a bit like Ben Foster going to catch the cross that Richarlison scored from yesterday. Again that's Bednarek or Livramento's fault, nothing to do with the keeper.

[Rickman42]

I just knew McCarthy would be made the scapegoat for the second goal…poor bloke can’t catch a break with our fans!

 

he’s actually been much better so far this season…made some massive saves. Distribution dodgy at times, but not dreadful.

 

Bednarek was at fault for the second goal yesterday by letting Cornet turn him, but not many keepers are saving that strike.

 

until Forster leaves in the summer we’ll be sticking with Macca, and he’s done well so far! 

[VectisSaint]

2 hours ago, Rickman42 said:

I just knew McCarthy would be made the scapegoat for the second goal…poor bloke can’t catch a break with our fans!

 

he’s actually been much better so far this season…made some massive saves. Distribution dodgy at times, but not dreadful.

 

Bednarek was at fault for the second goal yesterday by letting Cornet turn him, but not many keepers are saving that strike.

 

until Forster leaves in the summer we’ll be sticking with Macca, and he’s done well so far! 

Thought he was OK yesterday. His distribution was not good (awful one to put Salisu in trouble) but otherwise did nothing wrong. He will never be s great keeper, but he's clearly the best we have, wouldn't be surprised to see a new keeper in January. 

[waylander]

7 hours ago, Whitey Grandad said:

I agree with you about FF. I am not a great believer in McCarthy and have often criticised him but having seen the replays of yesterday I find it hard to criticise him for their second. It was a dipping shot that went just inside the foot of the post.

I would have liked to see a goalkeeper come and clear the cross for their first goal but such keepers are rare to find.

I agree. It was a very good strike that I doubt any current PL keeper wpuld have stopped. 

[waylander]

5 minutes ago, adriansfc said:

you have a tremendously low opinion of all current PL keepers. 

And you have deeply unrealistic expectations of keepers

[FarehamSaintJames]

4 hours ago, Rickman42 said:

I just knew McCarthy would be made the scapegoat for the second goal…poor bloke can’t catch a break with our fans!

 

he’s actually been much better so far this season…made some massive saves. Distribution dodgy at times, but not dreadful.

 

Bednarek was at fault for the second goal yesterday by letting Cornet turn him, but not many keepers are saving that strike.

 

until Forster leaves in the summer we’ll be sticking with Macca, and he’s done well so far! 

He may have made some marginally good saves, but he is still the worst keeper in the league, no one else comes close.

If I was an opposing striker I'd be buzzing to be shooting against him pre-match.

[The Cat]

27 minutes ago, FarehamSaintJames said:

He may have made some marginally good saves, but he is still the worst keeper in the league, no one else comes close.

If I was an opposing striker I'd be buzzing to be shooting against him pre-match.

He's in the bottom few keepers in the league but that's from a pretty small pool of genuinely talented professionals.

People really don't appreciate how difficult goalkeeping is. 

As for making "marginally good" saves, well that's a ridiculous comment. Every keeper in the league makes quality saves every season. You only have to go back a few weeks to the top class save he made at Man City in the last minute to earn us a point to prove your statement as being woefully incorrect.

[nta786]

26 minutes ago, The Cat said:

He's in the bottom few keepers in the league but that's from a pretty small pool of genuinely talented professionals.

People really don't appreciate how difficult goalkeeping is. 

As for making "marginally good" saves, well that's a ridiculous comment. Every keeper in the league makes quality saves every season. You only have to go back a few weeks to the top class save he made at Man City in the last minute to earn us a point to prove your statement as being woefully incorrect.

I'd go as far as saying people don't appreciate how good any PL player is, myself included.

I mean, if you are the starting GK in any of the top 5 European leagues, you are one of the 100 in the world out of c. 7.9bn people which is crazy when you think about it.

 

[woodsaint1]

7 hours ago, Rickman42 said:

I just knew McCarthy would be made the scapegoat for the second goal…poor bloke can’t catch a break with our fans!

 

he’s actually been much better so far this season…made some massive saves. Distribution dodgy at times, but not dreadful.

 

Bednarek was at fault for the second goal yesterday by letting Cornet turn him, but not many keepers are saving that strike.

 

until Forster leaves in the summer we’ll be sticking with Macca, and he’s done well so far! 

Dont agree. Cornet caught McCarthy by surprise with the early strike on the turn but it was nowhere near the corner. Better positioning and anticipation and its a comfortable save

[Uncle Albert]

17 hours ago, FarehamSaintJames said:

He may have made some marginally good saves, but he is still the worst keeper in the league, no one else comes close.

If I was an opposing striker I'd be buzzing to be shooting against him pre-match.

Have a word with yourself.

[VectisSaint]

18 hours ago, FarehamSaintJames said:

He may have made some marginally good saves, but he is still the worst keeper in the league, no one else comes close.

If I was an opposing striker I'd be buzzing to be shooting against him pre-match.

Do you get more points for a good save than a marginally good one? A save is a save is a save. What is a marginally good save anyway. As for opposing strikers shooting against him pre-match, that would be interesting, but I would think the opposing strikers are more likely to be buzzing about shooting against him during the match itself.

One of the daftest posts I have read on here, and that's saying something.

[FarehamSaintJames]

I wouldn’t say it’s a daft post, our goalkeeper is one of the weakest in the league.
If I was an opposing striker I would be licking my lips going up against him.

A couple of saves doesn’t make him a good keeper, his lapses in basic goalkeeping ability prove he isn’t competent or reliable for Premier League level.

[Rickman42]

Understandably, many Saints fans calling for Fraser Forster to start today…

 

But another Premier League clean sheet for Macca, and a couple of BIG saves at the end to secure the 3 points!

 

Both keepers in good form!

[harvey]

I'm not a big fan but he think he's done 'ok' this season, but he's too soft...2 or 3 times he should have bollocked Salisu tonight, but no, he says nothing.

[Saint Garrett]

Good keeping again tonight, absolutely woeful kicking. How hard is it to boot the ball up the pitch. 

[Harry_SFC]

24 minutes ago, Saint Garrett said:

Good keeping again tonight, absolutely woeful kicking. How hard is it to boot the ball up the pitch. 

His kicking was really really bad. 

[Roo1976]

1 hour ago, Saint Garrett said:

Good keeping again tonight, absolutely woeful kicking. How hard is it to boot the ball up the pitch. 

Just kick the ball forward and with elevation ..................simple

 

[Edmonton Saint]

We have to move on from this guy. Two crap goals today which were 100% saveable. He's been a weakness for years but nobody at the club seems to see it. Has he signed his new contract yet? I hope it's ripped up and thrown in the bin. Very poor. 

[Sheaf Saint]

Very poor today. Cost us badly.

With a better keeper we win that 1-0.

[Ade]

Cost us 3 points today. I know he's made some decent saves this season but today he was crap. Both goals he should have done better, especially the second. Forster should take over goalkeeping duties now

[Saint_clark]

Forster should be starting, I don't give a fuck about clean sheets where McCarthy hardly had anything to do. Those were two of the worst attempted saves I've ever seen.

[Saints foreva]

Poor for both goals but the two CBs played a role in their first. Bednarek watches Pukki and Salisu waits for the cross when he should be attacking it. All 3 should have done better. 

[Katalinic]

He has the odd decent game but everyone knows he isn't good enough consistently to be first choice.

[aintforever]

He’s always just been a back up keeper, problem is some maniac gave Forster a massive contract so we’re stuck until he sees it out.