David James

[Lack of Action Man]

Doesn't really change the situation too much for me.

Gerken should always have been first choice in the cup competitions. For one reason it prevents James picking up any unwaranted injuries and gives Gerken competitive game time.

It's up to the manager to decide whether James' performance was bad enough to merit dropping him and whether Gerken trains hard enough and performs well versus Swindon.

Time will tell.

[erniehuntslovechild]

Just DROP him - Calamity is our weakest link..........

[simonwheeler]

Just DROP him - Calamity is our weakest link..........

With you 100%. If i get into the ground tomorrow night and Gherken's not in goal then I certainly will not be a happy bunny? Personally I wouldnt even have THE CLOWN James on the bench - give young Carey some first team experience? James had his day ages ago, all we are now doing is funding the guys pension fund - He should have had the total decency to retire two seasons ago.

[Slave to the rhythm]

With you 100%. If i get into the ground tomorrow night and Gherken's not in goal then I certainly will not be a happy bunny? Personally I wouldnt even have THE CLOWN James on the bench - give young Carey some first team experience? James had his day ages ago, all we are now doing is funding the guys pension fund - He should have had the total decency to retire two seasons ago.

Come on Jordan, threaten to blow his kneecaps off for saying this, and then claim it was meant as a joke.

[lager loud]

I've just watched the goals for the first time since Saturday.

The first one is almost entirely James' fault: although Chopra got just the wrong side of the defenders, he was heading for the corner of the box, and if James hadn't come out he'd have found it difficult to make a clear cut chance. A keeper has to close down quickly where an attacker is running directly towards goal, but Chopra wasn't, so James should have stayed back unless he was 100% sure of getting to the ball first.

The second goal I'd put under the heading "didn't cover himself in glory" for James. I think a good keeper on his game could have got down to it. The main fault for that one, though, has to be with Fontaine. I don't subscribe to the view that you can't have two left footed centre backs (no-one sees a problem with having two right footers). But the way Fontaine positions himself before this goal is clearly the action of someone very left footed, almost turning his back on the ball to be able to "lead" with his left foot, and backing off for about 15 yards. Bad technique. Skuse has to take some of the blame for giving the ball away, but that only led to Ipswich getting possession just inside their own half, and we (i.e. Fontaine) could have done much better once they had the ball.

Having seen the third again I think JCR has to take a bigger chunk of the blame that I thought on Saturday. He really wasn't under that much pressure from the Ipswich player (and had plenty of space when the ball got to him). It wasn't the greatest pass back, but DJ still had just enough time to clear it before Chopra got to him, and trying to chip it past Chopra was stupid. I'd say the blame for this one goes 50/50 between JCR and DJ.

All of which probably leaves me feeling what I've felt about the signing of DJ since he joined - which is that it was unnecessary and overly expensive. He's a good goalkeeper, but we had two of those anyway, and his wages could have been better spent on other parts of the team last season. We might also have kept Henderson if DJ wasn't here, which might just prove to be the worst thing about having signed him. I suspect that we're stuck with him for the rest of the season, after which we can do something more sensible with the money we're spending on his wages.