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Super keeper Gavin Bazunu ? #COYBIG | #WeAreOne | #PORIRL /GoabxI6VzO Regardless of the result, a moment Gavin will never forget ? The 20-year-old has already enjoyed success with club and country, most notably saving a Cristiano Ronaldo penalty last September. Southampton’s acquisition of Bazunu is being regarded as something of a coup by staff members at Portsmouth, with Martyn Glover, the club’s head of scouting and recruitment who will join Leicester City at the end of the summer, commended for getting the deal over the line. The Athletic understands the 32-year-old has been training at Staplewood throughout the summer, having missed five months of last season with injury. However, McCarthy is intent on hitting the ground running this pre-season. This means 72 per cent of goalkeepers from the top five European Leagues have more involvement when their side has the ball. Similarly, while caveated with Southampton’s reluctance to recycle possession across the back line, McCarthy ranks in the 28th percentile for touches. When analysing defensive actions outside the penalty area, McCarthy only ranks in the 2nd percentile, according to FBref, which suggests manning large spaces - especially in a team that typically adopts a high defensive line - remains a discernible weakness. For instance, a player with an overall impact in the 70th percentile means they have a greater overall impact than 70 per cent of players in the dataset. We can also understand more about player’s style by looking at percentiles - a straightforward way of showing how he ranks in comparison to positional peers within the dataset. As The Athletic has previously reported, other new signing Mateusz Lis is likely to be sent out on loan, having signed a five-year deal at the club last week.Īverage pitch positions for McCarthy and Bazunu for the 2021-22 season
Bazunu is more adept in covering larger spaces and is generally more proactive. The two images below demonstrate the contrast in starting positions between Bazunu and Alex McCarthy, the goalkeeper set to vie with the Irishman for the No 1 spot at Southampton. This proved particularly effective in the early parts of the season when manager Danny Cowley was attempting to implement a more concerted team press, although he was made to dial back his front-footed nature over the course of the campaign. Out of possession, meanwhile, a regular observer described Bazunu’s starting position as “another centre-back”, given his penchant for sweeping. This encouraged quicker, more influential, decisions in his distribution while retaining preciseness. This included identifying his three passing options when he had the ball at his feet.
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Before games, Bazunu was an advocate of detailed pre-match analysis, constantly watching clips of the opposition to understand where and when his passing angles would be if a particular scenario arose. Although a loan player still in his teens, he was unafraid to speak up in front of team-mates and hold them to account. This, in turn, rubber-stamped the club’s scouting reports and convinced the club to push ahead with a season-long loan deal for the 2021-22 campaign.īy the time he arrived on the south coast, Bazunu had acclimatised to first-team football. Sources describe Bazunu’s mindset as possibly his biggest strength - the type of attribute conducive to fast learning. The Athletic understands Portsmouth felt that the goalkeeper, despite crinkles and inconsistencies, would follow a similar career trajectory to Brighton and Spain’s Robert Sanchez, who was on loan at Rochdale the year prior. Ironically, however, at that time, Portsmouth were - along with Southampton - tracking Bazunu. He would ultimately lose his place for the final eight matches as Rochdale were relegated from League One as then-manager Brian Barry-Murphy dropped the 18-year-old after defeat away to Portsmouth. Individual metrics weren’t exactly eye-catching - according to FBref, he had just a 61.2 per cent save ratio and 13.8 per cent clean sheet rate - and his form gradually declined during the season. While he was able to encounter, sometimes endure, the abrasion of the Football League, blindspots within his game were accentuated. At surface level, Gavin Bazunu’s loan at Rochdale was a modest success.