George Long

[BladeFisher]

In defence of the lad he knew he made a balls up today big time, and at BDTBL and in front of the Kop.

Calling for his head now ain't gonna help. Where he was unfortunate is that he made a really dumb error when the rest of the team have hit an awful spell and against a background of last season and the one before and umpteen play-off defeats and fans are rightly getting pissed off big time.

He has made some wonderful saves but he still has a lot to learn and there are cracks apparent in his game. Bring back Hodgy to help coach him - two local lads together! He is still learning the game.

In some ways todays mistake had its good and bad points. If the team had played well and been thwarted by brilliant Yeovil defence and he let that goal in - he would have let the team down. But they played crap too, so to some extent he was part of a poor showing so he shouldn't be singled out.

No on the whole Long is good - but needs a pick me up now. Give the lad some encouagement at Notts County. If he buckles only then should Wilson drop him. He's got to give the lad a chance to overcome his error.

 

[Kev Gee]

Agreed. give him a good pep talk.
Ignore what the fans say.
Its upto Wilson to man manage him & get him in the right frame of mind.

 

[PaulMK]

Just seen the highlights he didn't do to well with the first but the 2nd was comical, sorry but I did laugh.

 

[Highbury_Blade]

Even Peter Schmeichel had a few off days, even when he was at his peak.

 

[Jehovah]

My thoughts are well published...by me. Im not even going to comment on the second one today as I was adamant we needed a replacement before today.

 

[Small Mendonca]

Just seen the highlights he didn't do to well with the first but the 2nd was comical, sorry but I did laugh.

You'll soon realise Paul that SUFC are a laughing stock at times. It's embarrassing when we supposed to be one of the 'better' teams in the division.

 

[Latters]

My mate pretty much summed it up for me after Long's mistake when he said "well, he's saved us a lot more than he's cost us lately" which is what you want from your keeper. They all make mistakes, look at that De Gea when he first came. He dropped bollocks galore and he's playing for the best team in the country.

To drop Long now would knock his confidence and wouldn't benefit anybody.

 

[SwissBlade]

There is a big difference between bad goalkeeping and stupid errors.

 

[boo radley]

It is a shame we have no mark from Deadbat.

 

[super_pig]

he didn't want to play it to williams did he??
scapegoating long is pointless.. if it had been a close game and he'd fucked up things would have been different but we were totally outplayed anyway.. best make a bollock when we're getting hammered .. in the end it didn't make any difference.. it didn't influence the result.. move on

 

[Flakey]

Having played in goal abeit a bloody long time ago, you don't need anyone to tell you that you were crap, and nightmare goals are played over and over again in your head, of course by then its all too late, the only good thing about it is that you resolve that in your next game you will prove everyone wrong in their estimation of you, and decide you will be unbeatable.
Presonally I think his next game will be a clean sheet.
Go for it George!

 

[BristolBlade]

Keepers will always make mistakes, some will get away with it and others wont! As we all know when a keeper makes a blunder it's more than likely it will cost a goal which it did for George yesterday.
Fuck me the amount of times he's pulled off a blinder for example Preston North End away last minute comes to mind plus many others. The lads 19 years old, we are talking about someone who is being monitored so say by big Prem clubs, he is going to make mistakes that's the whole part of development and growing up, I'm sure he'll come back strong against Notts County and then you can judge his character then.
I'm sure Danny Coyne will help him on the training ground in the week he was prone to a few blunders in his time and personally I rate Long a better keeper over Howard!
Maybe we should be looking at other areas on the pitch, the lack of creativity for a start, that's another argument up for discussion.
However it's great to have these kids coming through, get behind them so they can become better players because the way I see it the quicker they develop and get used to playing regular 1st team football the better squad we will have in a few years to come! UTB!

 

[Flatulent_Bob]

He made some mistakes, I suppose it depends on what you think is best for his long term development as to if he should be sent to reserve team football for the rest of the season.
I think he needs to play and learn, the mistakes weren't (as per Harry M regular drop in form) due to fatigue therefore he should retain his place as the clubs No1.

If we can't blood youngsters and accept mistakes in this league we may as well forget bringing them through.
If we want to be an quality producer of young players this comes with the territory. What we need is a fanbase strong enough to support them, and a manager who knows when they need to be protected, and when they need to be pushed forward.

 

[Bergen Blade]

What Long was trying to do was to use three touches to get the ball back out. First touch to stop the ball rolling/bouncing towards him, second touch to roll it forward before kicking it forward with his third touch.

This is too much when an opponent is closing him down.


Taking three touches should only be done when he's got plenty of time and trying to slow the pace of the game down. I don't think he was trying to be clever. It is either that he has the bad habit of needing three touches to get the ball upfield, or that he wasn't aware enough to realise that their striker was closing him down.

Either way I expect Long to realise the above, work on it and become a better keeper from the experience.

 

[shorehamview]

Next time you know he'll just smack it first time. Anyone remember that cheeky goal Cressy scored t'other year when the opposition goalie dropped the ball to kick it without checking who was behind him? Blackwell said that young players make mistakes, and learn from them. Here's hoping George learns the importance of quick actions.

 

[Kentblade]

In defence of the lad he knew he made a balls up today big time, and at BDTBL and in front of the Kop.

Calling for his head now ain't gonna help. Where he was unfortunate is that he made a really dumb error when the rest of the team have hit an awful spell and against a background of last season and the one before and umpteen play-off defeats and fans are rightly getting pissed off big time.

He has made some wonderful saves but he still has a lot to learn and there are cracks apparent in his game. Bring back Hodgy to help coach him - two local lads together! He is still learning the game.

In some ways todays mistake had its good and bad points. If the team had played well and been thwarted by brilliant Yeovil defence and he let that goal in - he would have let the team down. But they played crap too, so to some extent he was part of a poor showing so he shouldn't be singled out.

No on the whole Long is good - but needs a pick me up now. Give the lad some encouagement at Notts County. If he buckles only then should Wilson drop him. He's got to give the lad a chance to overcome his error.

Strange but i do not recall Hodgy ever working at the Lane during a long and distinguished carear as a keeper and keeper coach.
As far as I know as now retired due to a recent health issue.
What a great keeper he was, I remember his early games after he came to the club when he was working as a butchers boy.
Took over from another good keeper, Ted Burgin.
UTB

 

[Maidenhead]

He's a young lad and I'm generally impressed with him.

Hopefully he will learn from his mistakes and move on.

We should do the same.

 

[Hodgyman]

George doesn't need anyone to let him know he dropped a clanger, he knows it already. The lad will no doubt learn from it and will be unlikey to repeat the experience.
People need to remember that it is very early in his career, so will undoubtedly make others. The key is to learn from each one. This is exactly why young players are put out on loan, to gain experience but at the other club's risk.

In George's case, he has shown to be the best goalkeeper at our club, with his performances gaining us many points. The boob that he made for the second goal didn't cost us points as the game was already.

Let's put it down to inexperience and move on.

 

[Hodgyman]

It should have read "the game was already lost".

 

[TwoHeadedSexBeast]

It's daft having a go at the kid, he's been one of the better performers.

 

[PeterNdlovu081]

It's daft having a go at the kid, he's been one of the better performers.

Cracking username.

Although I think I would have gone for Small Town Gypsy Massacre, Astonishing Bum Queen or Alf Ramsey's Porn Dungeon.

 

[broomhillblade]

Every keeper makes a daft mistake at some stage in his career. In Alan Kelly's early days with the Blades I saw him do something just as silly as Long in a reserve game, which gifted a goal to the opposition.

Wilson probably won't drop him for the next match, but one thing is certain - Notts County will be testing him at every opportunity.

 

[axel smeets]

A goalkeeper is paid to use his hands. Blame the defenders and their back passes, i.e. not taking responsibility for the ball rather than Long. Whoever did the back pass should take a portion of the blame.

 

[Balham]

A goalkeeper is paid to use his hands. Blame the defenders and their back passes, i.e. not taking responsibility for the ball rather than Long. Whoever did the back pass should take a portion of the blame.

Bollocks. One of the main reasons Barcelona monopolise possession is that Valdes is a footballing goalkeeper. That mistake was Long's and Long's alone but if he learns from it then it's no harm done...unless we miss out on promotion on goals conceded

Long made a major misjudgement but it adds to my suspicion that the other 10 players on the field will try and avoid passing to Marcus Williams at any cost.

 

[axel smeets]

Probably true about Williams. He is poor even by Division Three standards. I disagree about Long though. You see it all the time on tv, defenders take the easy option and pass back instead of dealing with the ball and playing it back out.

 

[Balham]

Probably true about Williams. He is poor even by Division Three standards. I disagree about Long though. You see it all the time on tv, defenders take the easy option and pass back instead of dealing with the ball and playing it back out.

Not going to disagree with that axel but the goalkeeper should be able to deal with routine backpasses. Madden was 20 yards from Long when he first touched the ball.

Williams is the least composed professional footballer I've ever seen. There's evidently some skill in there - he's capable of going on a run down the wing and beating 2 or 3 men but when it comes to picking a pass he's woeful. I lost count of the number of aimless hoofs down the line at Oxford, most of which went out of play about 15 yards from where he kicked them.

 

[axel smeets]

At Oxford he looked terrible in a side that ended up winning by a three goal margin against a side a division below. That takes some doing. He is quite simply the worst player on our books.

 

[cooperblade]

What Long was trying to do was to use three touches to get the ball back out. First touch to stop the ball rolling/bouncing towards him, second touch to roll it forward before kicking it forward with his third touch.

This is too much when an opponent is closing him down.


Taking three touches should only be done when he's got plenty of time and trying to slow the pace of the game down. I don't think he was trying to be clever. It is either that he has the bad habit of needing three touches to get the ball upfield, or that he wasn't aware enough to realise that their striker was closing him down.

Either way I expect Long to realise the above, work on it and become a better keeper from the experience.

The most worrying thing was that he had nearly done something very similar in the first minute of the 2nd half and hadn't learnt from that.

Every keeper makes a daft mistake at some stage in his career. In Alan Kelly's early days with the Blades I saw him do something just as silly as Long in a reserve game, which gifted a goal to the opposition.

Wilson probably won't drop him for the next match, but one thing is certain - Notts County will be testing him at every opportunity.

Kelly did something very similar for the 1st team v WBA, he was talking about it on twitter over the weekend.

 

[SwissBlade]

Just seen the second goal on the highlights.

Looks to me that it was a complete lack of concentration. His second touch was a shocker, just allowed it to get away from him and the striker capitalised.

I don't think that there is anything more for him to learn. Looking at his face after the ball went in, he learnt pretty quickly. Feck up = goal = embarassed lad

These things will happen over a goalkeepers career, it was a daft mistake, nothing more to see, move along.

Hopefully it won't damage the confidence of a very promising young goalkeeper that we will do well to keep hold of in the next year or so.

 

[Guesty]

Cracking username.

Although I think I would have gone for Small Town Gypsy Massacre, Astonishing Bum Queen or Alf Ramsey's Porn Dungeon.

Horses by Will Self.