He certainly is a player that has divided opinion in the past couple of months.
Probably none more so than after his display against Nottingham Forest a couple of weeks ago, but at least he’s been able to open up about the difficulties of playing in the position, and he’s showing that he’s not letting the doubters get to him.
But at the same time, when you make the kind of mistake that he made against Hull City, you do have to start to wonder if maybe he needs to stop the talking and start actually making himself a better goalkeeper. If you haven’t already figured it out, I’m of course talking about Joe Lumley.
As I said a couple of weeks back following the Nottingham Forest game, if he makes the odd mistake, then that’s fine, making mistakes happen, but they get amplified when you’re a goalkeeper because they often lead to a goal rather than just a goal kick whenever a striker makes a mistake.
It’s when they start to become a regular occurrence that you need to start worrying, and I am now starting to worry that they are beginning to creep into his game on too regular a basis. Not only with his overall performance against Forest, but giving the ball away against Fulham and the aforementioned one against Hull City.
Now I think we need to start having the debate about his position, and with the January window mere hours away, it couldn’t have come at a better time.
I think that he is on his last straw personally, one more mistake and we do need to consider making the change in goal. The fact that Liam Kelly was given his chance and blew by conceding 14 goals in 6 games it shows that he really isn’t up to the task, so it might be worth exploring the market a more senior goalkeeper to come in and act as backup should there be any more mistakes further down the line.
Should Joe Lumley be dropped?
Yes
No
It’s either that or we turn to another youngster in Dillon Barnes who has been waiting patiently in the wings all season.
