Andy_W
Well-known member
Hard to say improved as a lot were new, but Ayling was better this year than he was last year. Whitaker was a lot better. Conway was really good on the left, out of position. McGree was fit for more games than expected, so was Fry, so that was better.Other than Morris/Hackney - Which of our players can you genuinely say improved during the season? - They all had purple patches and poor runs of form, same as Brynn.
Brynn has improved year on year. He was playing in Scotland, then L2, then L1, now the Championship in (almost) consecutive seasons.
You can't get a much better proof of improvement than moving up levels of the pyramid.
He's only been given one season at this level - and based on his historic improvement year on year, it would be stupid to not give him another one (in my opinion).
The problem from Brynn's perspective is it's very easy to forget his good form at the start of the season, due to the few mistakes he made at the end of it (play-off final being one example).
It's much easier to remember a GK's mistakes than a GK's "anything amazing" because the amazing rarely happens, and what's expected is overlooked...
Comparing him individually to Trafford or Rushworth doesn't work - They were part of teams which dominated the league, had the best overall defensive records, and finished #1.
If you compare Brynn to Pandur:
Brynn has saved a higher % of shots with a xGOT of higher than 0.5 - 26% vs 24%.
Brynn has also saved a higher % of shots between 0.3 - 0.5 - 78% vs. 76%.
And they've both saved 97% of shots with a xGOT of below 0.2
The weird anomaly in the results is shots with a xGOT of 0.2 (I rounded, so it's between 0.15 and 0.24).... Brynn has only saved 52% of these which seems shocking - Pandur has saved 89%.
But when you look deeper at these actual shots, they include:
Norwich in August - 0.18 xGOT - shot from outside the box, took a deflection off Jones.
Watford in November - 0.21 xGOT - screamer from outside the box, I don't know how Brynn could have saved it.
Both Southampton goals in the play-offs also fall into this category - Brynn might have been able to do better, but Charles goal was definitely a poor-cross, not a good-shot.
They also mostly came in games we won - so it would be interesting to see a stat on how many of the "goals prevented" equated to "points won/lost". I don't think it would be many.
You mentioned keepers who get the big transfers - and then getting a keeper for 3,4,5 million would be good value - but Brynn is currently the 3rd highest value keeper in the league.
I try and think of it this way, if I was trying to rank our players for their ability in their position, going down the list and picking who would have first, like Hackney, or who would have second, like Morris, I think Brynn's in the bottom one or two. I appreciate a couple of left who will ultimately need replacing. Anyone in the bottom 4 or not in the first team, we should be trying to improve on I think.
You can move up a level without getting better, though, he might be a good keeper in League One and then a bad keeper in the Championship, yet with the same ability.
I don't think his form was that good at any part of the season. I think in the beginning of the season we were a lot more defensive, and less committing going forward, which made his job easier. I think I posted on it a few times that I wasn't particularly happy with him. That was before the end of the season and a lot of big mistakes in the big games. The Coventry one away comes to mind, where he was stood near the edge of his box, yet he was beaten to a ball that bounced twice and the second time on the six-yard box, that should never happen. I appreciate our high line and Ayling have had some fault there too though, but even with the faults, the keeper's job is to cover for that. I think there were another couple of instances where he didn't come out either, which caused us a problem before that Coventry one. There was another one where he came out and he just got it all wrong, and I think he gave away a penalty needlessley.
Yeah, Brynn seems to struggle with longer range shots, and those down on his left hand side and should really be his bread and butter. Obviously, for most of the closer chances, I'm not expecting him to save those. Every keeper in the league is probably getting their first share of screamers, though. The idea is to make up for it elsewhere by them pulling off their own worldies. For most keepers in the top 6, the worldies are a hell of a lot more than the clangers, but I don't really remember him having many worldies, to be honest.
I wouldn't be going off Transfer Market or FotMob values, they're probably played on in some way in that he's played lots of games for a top team, or he's had lots of clean sheets because he's behind a top defence in a top midfield. His value has probably been stat padded as such. I don't even know what his value is on there, but my guess is nobody in the top 6 would be paying that much money for him.
I'm not saying he's a nightmare, he isn't, but I just see him as a big risk for a side that wants top 2, like we could have had this year. It's the same way that I'd see Strelec playing centre forward as a risk or expecting 40 games out of McGree or Fry as a risk. My assumption is we'll be trying to improve on last year, and by improving, we're going to need a stronger team and a stronger squad.
I'm not going to be crying about it if we don't replace him or get a new no 1, but there could be a large dose of "I told you so" if his goals prevent his stats and the eye test (from me) are bad again this year.
