Newcastle United have two routes to go down with our goalkeeper situation this summer, and The Athletic mentioned something similar in their in-depth transfer piece this week.
The first option is to go big for Giorgi Mamardashvili; the Valencia stopper who will cost £35m minimum, which was always going to be the case. He’s already a very good GK, with top potential – and deserves to be playing every week.
It’ll be a huge move for the club – he would probably become the 4th most expensive GK of all time – and it would sort our No 1 spot for years. He’s still not perfect – he’s not particularly composed with the ball – but he’s a phenomenal shot-stopper and sweeper.
However, it’d also potentially mean that Nick Pope – currently in his prime – moves away from Newcastle, and I don’t think he’d want to be 2nd choice even despite his dodgy shoulder.
The two moves would spell a big change in our goalkeeping department, which is always a risk. That consistency and trust with your backline would need rebuilding, and that isn’t easy to do quickly. It takes time, and efforts both on and off the pitch.
Goalkeepers are the organisers, leaders, and communicators of the team – and when a backline doesn’t trust a GK, it makes a huge difference. We saw it with Sels in 2016, and we saw it with Dubravka this season.
The second option is to go for a slightly younger and cheaper goalkeeper, for roughly half the price of Mamardashvili (£15-20m). Let this GK develop on the training ground, in cup matches, and let them compete with Pope. Hopefully by next season or the season after, they’ll be in a position to take over.
The name mentioned is Burnley’s James Trafford, with reports suggesting we are preparing a bid for the England U21 talent. This makes loads of sense to me. He had a poor season, but he’s *so* young. Very few GKs play in the Premier League at 21. He’s got bags of potential, has a wonderfully rounded skillset, and is only going to get better.
There’s not a GK on the planet who could play PL football at 21 and make it look easy. The majority of the existing elite GKs were playing at a much lower level at that age.
The other similar profile that I like is Villarreal’s Filip Jörgensen. Similar price and age, and also with loads of potential while not having the immediate expectation of starting in the league. Add the likes of Restes, Backhaus, Chevalier and Suzuki to that type of profile.
The first option is a much more drastic shift – which will undoubtedly unsettle us more in the short term – but it possesses big long term upside. Changing GKs will always have short-term teething issues while that trust is developed, but then also Mamardashvili has the potential to be elite once that trust is gained.
The second option is a much more stable and risk-averse option, which still possesses long-term upside if we can get the right young GK and develop them properly. Both strategies have merits, but I’d personally lean towards the latter. Financially, it’ll allow us to do more to fix the rest of the squad in this window, and it’ll also mean more stability in the short run.
There’s a lot of talk of pressure being on us next season to get Europe, and hence there’ll be some more short-termist thinking compared to last summer. It’s about finding that balance between achieving our goals in the short run, but also giving us a long-term platform.
For me, that means getting a young GK to play behind Pope to begin with, compete with him, and eventually replace him – while giving us more funds to improve at RCB and RW. I think it’s the move which strikes the right balance.
