Thursday 25 May 2017

Allsop really had a big test at Leicester

Ryan has had a waiting room watch of a season. He has seen Adam Federci fall out of the squad with a knee injury and has still played second fiddle to Artur Boruc in goal on most match days. But he finally got his chance to play in front of a big crowd at the King Power stadium and apparently he had played their before for AFCB against Leicester in the Championship.
Allsop has to keep working hard to catch up with the keepers ahead of him at AFCB.
The day must have been quite a shock for Ryan, as he stepped on the bus expecting Artur Boruc to be there. As he wasn’t, he soon gathered that he was number one on this trip and that he would be guarding the goal for Bournemouth. While he set about his preparations as normal, it must be exciting to know that you are finally going to be playing for 90 minutes in a Premier League match and it was a credit to Ryan that he had a fairly good game. He might not have known that much about the save he made from Islam Slimani in the first half when the ball was headed right at him, but it showed his positioning sense was okay and he built his confidence up from there.

There were some errant goal kicks, but Ryan did not disappoint on the day and made an excellent dash for the ball before Mahrez in the first half that could have been been a problem, if he was not more alert. I still feel that Allsop gets nervous when he is called into action and that he need to try and dominate his goal more in coming for crosses and imposing himself on the opposition forwards, but he is not shying away from the possibility of impact or thinking of anything other than getting the ball, when it is flying around the box, which is good to see.

I wonder what the conversations are like between Eddie and Ryan as to whether he can eventually get the number one spot at the club, as we know that Asmir Begovic is a target for AFCB this summer. Unless Frederici moves on this would put Ryan further down the pecking order so it is important that he plays well and makes the most of his chance to play as he did at Leicester. While he did not have much of a hope of stopping the Leicester goal he did try and get back to Vardy which kind of gives me belief that Ryan is stepping up his game and could yet become an asset. Eddie Howe certainly has continued to believe in him and I expect him to be in the squad next season, but as a third choice keeper Allsop needs to believe in himself that he can be a Premier League keeper for AFCB if he is going to move Boruc and Federici from the top spots.

1 comment:

  1. These are the players who make me sympathise. Allsop did nothing wrong but also he just finds himself in a bad position: with a premier league team but no experience to really push on. Players like Ibe deserve not to be played: he made his mistakes and, although I suspect he will be a bigger asset next season, he never pushed himself to a new level. Allsop hasn't even been given the chance to push.

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