You have to feel a little sorry for Gunnar Nielsen at the moment. After his fourteen minutes in the sun at the Emirates on Saturday, where he became the first Faroe Islander to play in the Premiership, Nielsen will now go back to being an unappreciated understudy after Manchester City secured the emergency loan signing of Hungarian goalkeeper Martin Fulop this morning.
Chances are you won’t hear of poor Gunnar again, unless you’re a keen follower of Brian Kerr’s Faroe army that is.
City were pressed into taking the emergency action after Irish international Shay Given suffered a nasty looking dislocated shoulder on Saturday, while his back up, Stuart Taylor is also currently sidelined with a knee injury.
After unsuccessfully attempting to recall Joe Hart from Birmingham, City have called on Fulop, no stranger to the loan deal, having previously been between the sticks at Chesterfield, Coventry City, Leicester City and Stoke City after failing to establish himself as the number one while at parent clubs Tottenham Hotspur and Sunderland.
Interestingly, another goalkeeper on the playing staff, Columbian David González Giraldo, signed earlier this year from Argentinian club Huracan, is also nursing a knee injury at present, which has lead to the quite ridiculous situation that probably the richest club in the world are so starved of goalkeeping options that they are forced into the emergency signing of a (no offence Martin) journeyman keeper for three of the biggest games in the club’s history.
The fact that Taylor and Giraldo were the next in line to replace Given is also a tad puzzling. Stuart Taylor was signed last summer to embark on yet another episode in a career where he is used to being second best. In eight years at Arsenal, Taylor played eighteen first team games in total, averaging just over two games a season. He moved onto Aston Villa in 2005 where he stayed for four seasons, this time making twelve first team appearances.
Giraldo was plying his trade in the Columbian, Turkish and Argentinean leagues before joining City. Surely a team bathing in riches like City could afford goalkeepers of a higher calibre, even if it is just to warm the bench.
Of all positions, the substitute keeper can be one of the loneliest. If you’re stuck behind a world class number one, like Taylor has been this season, you’re only likely to see a few minutes here and there in the cup competitions. Most clubs, then, sign a back up on goalkeeper on the basis that they are going to be just that, a back up.
Consider for a second though, what has happened this season. Manchester United’s back up goalkeepers, both full internationals, have both been given considerable playing time after Edwin van der Sar was absent through a combination of injuries and some personal time off when his wife was seriously ill.
Hilario and Ross Turnbull have both featured in high profile games for Chelsea this season when Petr Cech was missing. Ditto Fabianski and Mannone for Arsenal. Tottenham Hotspur’s Carlo Cudicini injured himself in a motorbike accident and Fulop himself enjoyed a decent spell in the Sunderland side when Craig Gordon missed nearly three months with a broken arm. It seems that goalkeepers are fragile after all.
For clubs with a modest league position and a budget to match that position, a move like the one Mancini has been forced into this week is understandable.
But for Manchester City, powered by the billions of Sheikh Mansour, a club who made an estimated £17 million loss replacing the brilliant Richard Dunne with the average Joleon Lescott, surely this could have been avoided.
