When you are chopping and changing your number one twice within the space of a matter of weeks, that usually points to a manager under pressure and desperately trying to find a way to plug the holes in a porous backline.
The now-departed Nottingham Forest manager Steve Cooper started 2023/24 with Matt Turner between the sticks. Then, after one mistake too many, in came Odysseas Vlachodimos.
Well, for a bit. Vlachodimos started strongly, solid in the 2-0 win over surprise title-chasers Aston Villa. But then came a run of four defeats on the trot, including a five-goal reverse at Fulham, and Vlachodimos was out of the team as quickly as he had come into it.
Manchester United wanted the Nottingham Forest man
Cooper’s replacement, Nuno Espirito Santo, now finds himself arriving at the City Ground under pressure to make an immediate decision about his main man between the sticks, Turner committing another costly error during the 2-0 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur on Friday.
Cooper’s last ride, as it turned out.
“In goal, Matt Turner has been a liability,” is The Independent’s assessment of the situation. “Odysseas Vlachodimos (has done) little better.”
With Andre Onana potentially departing for the Africa Cup of Nations in January, the depth of Erik ten Hag’s goalkeeping department is likely to come into question too. Altay Bayindir, highly-rated but as-yet untested, will be thrown in at the deep end in Onana’s absence.
United went from Vlachodimos from Bayindir
Bayindir will not have to do much, however, to outstrip Vlachodimos’ impact on English soil.
The £7.7 million summer signing from Benfica confirmed to Gazzetta dello Sport recently that Manchester United had held talks to sign him before turning to Bayindir in August.
And while no one is in any position to pass serious judgement on Bayindir as a United player just yet, it seemingly took Steve Cooper only five games, four defeats and 12 goal concessions to come to the conclusion that Vlachodimos is not a goalkeeper of Premier League quality.
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