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Fans Left Scratching Their Heads Over Birmingham’s Goalkeeper Plans

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It’s pretty clear that David Stockdale and Tomasz Kuszczak are surplus to requirements this summer. I think everyone can agree on that. It seems apparent that we made it clear to both players at the end of last season that they were no longer wanted.

That approach was certainly the best way of doing things. You can then give the players as much time as possible to find new clubs. However, from then on, it seems things have got a lot more complicated.

In Stockdale’s case, it looks as though his wage demands have put off interested clubs, with the only offers coming from Leeds being rejected. In Kuszczak’s case, with one year left on his deal, he isn’t going anywhere unless he is financially well compensated as well.

Still, even if we are finding it hard to sell both of these players, you would have thought that we would have settled on a replacement number one, considering the fact Garry Monk must have known for a while that both senior keepers were on their way out.

Yet, the Birmingham Mail say that although we are looking at Ingolstadt’s Orjan Nyland, he is just one of many options with Alex Smithies also having been considered. The fact that we haven’t settled on a primary goalkeeper target yet is a bit of a head-scratcher.

I get that Garry Monk’s core priority was keeping us up so transfer plans wouldn’t have been put into motion until mid-May. It does take time to scout targets and make bids as well. After signing Kristian Pedersen, the manager outlined his strategy for signing new players. They need to be of the right quality and have a good mentality.

Those type of players can be hard to find, but you don’t want to be in the situation like we were last summer where we were signing so many players late on in the window, and having to go straight into matches without the team having time to gel.

It is only June 28th, but the transfer window closes on August 9th this year, much earlier than previous seasons. That gives us six weeks to make the changes needed, and for that reason, having no priority target to replace Stockdale is a bit of a strange one.

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