Southampton 2-2 Leicester City: Three Match Takeaways from the draw

Southampton need to sort out their goalkeeping situation fast

For many looking from the outside, it might seem confusing why goal keeping is an absolute priority on the South Coast. On the surface, Forster and McCarthy both represent reasonable premier league shot stoppers with respectable records. McCarthy in particular has already registered five clean sheets this season.

Yet delve into many of the matches over the last two seasons and so many defeats or disappointing draws have come as a direct result of poor goalkeeping. Make no mistake, goal keeping is arguably the hardest role on a pitch – make an error up front and you’ll get another chance, whereas in goal the error will potentially cost a team a result.

McCarthy is more mobile and a better short passer of the ball than his rival, whilst Forster is the better shot stopper and generally speaking, the better at handling crosses. Both are often desperately slow at getting down to shots along the floor.

If one could combine the duo, you would probably have a top eight quality goalkeeper on your hands but both are ultimately too error prone and neither are likely to improve dramatically given their respective ages. With the likes of Dean Henderson and Sam Johnstone potentially available in the coming transfer windows, it would be madness not to consider a move for either of one of them.

Until the goal keeping situation improves, it’s hard to see Saints moving up the table. In the meantime however, the Southampton defence need to be better at being first to react to rebounds rather than allowing the likes of Evans the time and space to tap the ball in.