StrandedSnowflake RoyalStranded
Yep shock horror - I'm not judging a player until he has played for us. As has been mentioned before, you look at some of our keeper signings who went on to be good for us and on signing a lot would have been aghast. Al Habsi was a clown, Hahnemann was 3rd or 4th choice at Fulham and not rated at all by the fans there, Hislop signed from the US college system - there are probably more.
I will never get the outlook of slagging off or writing off a signing before he has even had a training session with us. If he turns out to be shocking, then fair enough, but there are so many variables that can make a keeper play poorly that simply changing clubs may make that difference - perhaps he was living away from family and was struggling as a result? I don't know and his past career is not really of any interest to me.
It's endearing if occasionally frustrating.
You don't have to see someone play to callout whether they're a good or bad signing. You should always remember that apparently good signings can turn out bad on the pitch and apparently bad signings can really step it up and pass muster. Those ways round are just less likely.
I was just particularly enjoying you taking two negatives - Lumley having a concentration issue (not really any evidence of that) and our defence being rubbish, and that adding up to a positive because he won’t have time to lose concentration. That's a special kind of optimism.
Just putting forward possible reasoning for him being "shit" but as I've stated many times - a GK does not get to play over 100 games at this level (when only 24 can play at any given time) and be shit. He has an error in him clearly but he obviously has qualities that have seen him picked for that number of games by at least 3 managers at 2 clubs.
Among the mockery from QPR and Boro fans, there are plenty of "there's a good player in there" comments. Hopefully a new environment and a bit of confidence will bring it out.