Would you sign Christian Walton

[Stuart]

Let’s see how good he is when the Lenihan and Adarabioyo partnership is broken up for a spell. Then we’ll have a better idea.

[Roverthechimp]

On 24/02/2020 at 02:55, jw_ said:

He's done enough to prove he would be well worth signing, but surely this poll should be a straight Yes or No.

Maybe sounds like something Mowbray would say.   

I suspect many "maybe" voters would prefer us to sign an experienced "top class" keeper but would now accept that Walton has proved himself acceptable if not "top class". I think most want to see at least some competition for the jersey - be it with Walton as first or 2nd choice.

[Tom]

Something I like about young Waltz is he uses his height really well, very good at coming and claiming the ball on corners etc, much stronger than Raya in that department.

[Mattyblue]

Agree there, you pretty much expect him to come and claim it.

Often seemed to be some sort of palava going on in the box from high balls with Raya.

[Bigdoggsteel]

It was constant worry and stress with Raya every time a cross came in. How many times would he end up juggling it and making hard work of it? Much calmer with Walton there. 

[RevidgeBlue]

On 23/02/2020 at 11:32, chaddyrovers said:

Walton isnt decent already @Stuart? Walton is developing more and more. Getting better each game. That's why he so highly rated by Brighton. Can I also why should have kept Raya and upgraded our keeper coach? Don't forget Raya wanted out and Our current GK coach Benson seem to improving Walton weekly. Plus Hilton aswell is very good prospect. 

@Blue blood, can we afford Walton permanently? For me, Brighton will want 5 mil pounds plus. I would expect an experience foreign keeper as number 1 next season. 

£5m plus?

You're having a laugh. He isn't worth 500k. Paying £5m for him would be as suicidal as paying £5m for Gallagher who also failed to impress whilst on loan here.

Which probably means Mowbray will do it.

Strange how Walton suddenly turns into Gordon Banks in certain posters eyes whenever we have a game or two when he has nothing to do.

 

[Bigdoggsteel]

6 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

£5m plus?

You're having a laugh. He isn't worth 500k. Paying £5m for him would be as suicidal as paying £5m for Gallagher who also failed to impress whilst on loan here.

Which probably means Mowbray will do it.

Strange how Walton suddenly turns into Gordon Banks in certain posters eyes whenever we have a game or two when he has nothing to do.

 

Is this post just to disagree with Chaddy? Walton has had some great games and when he has little to do,appears to keep his concentration and deals with stuff as well. 

"He isn't worth 500,000" You are surely on the wind up? 

[chaddyrovers]

2 hours ago, RevidgeBlue said:

£5m plus?

You're having a laugh. He isn't worth 500k. Paying £5m for him would be as suicidal as paying £5m for Gallagher who also failed to impress whilst on loan here.

Which probably means Mowbray will do it.

Strange how Walton suddenly turns into Gordon Banks in certain posters eyes whenever we have a game or two when he has nothing to do.

 

Well firstly I've always said we wouldn't be able to afford price wise. 

I've rated Walton for most of the season and see improve and development in his game. Plus his confidence is much better 

And I think Gallagher did impress during his loan spell here

[Stuart]

10 hours ago, Tom said:

Something I like about young Waltz is he uses his height really well, very good at coming and claiming the ball on corners etc, much stronger than Raya in that department.

He’s stronger than Raya in the height department, you say?

[Dreams of 1995]

18 hours ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

Is this post just to disagree with Chaddy? Walton has had some great games and when he has little to do,appears to keep his concentration and deals with stuff as well. 

"He isn't worth 500,000" You are surely on the wind up? 

This is the problem with 'painting yourselves into a corner'.

Anybody who denies Walton hasn't improved massively over the course of the season is simply in denial. He's a good goalkeeper and is showing that. If we managed to sign Walton in summer I'd be delighted.

I would like a number 2 but having Walton as our number 1 is good enough for me. This talk of signing Walton as a number 2, "only being worth 500k" sounds full of bitterness and is overly unpleasant just for the sake of it.

[tomphil]

He's settled down enough to show he's capable of further improvement in the future helped no doubt by the defence gelling a bit in front of him. The tombola has had it's wings clipped a bit as well so that helps imo.

Worth a punt if he's affordable but talk of 5 million as daft as 500k and i'd be worrying again if they paid that much, time to look at the connections seeing as they brought Gallagher as well !  In this day and age you're talking a million down with add ons being a reasonable deal i reckon. He's got solid championship pedigree now as well as a bit of potential.

Raya went for 3 so anything more than that would be wiffy to me, i'm saying undisclosed fee of about 2.5 that's my prediction. Of course Nixon or someone will be putting 3 other clubs after him and quoting 5 million before the end of the season !

Edited March 3, 2020 by tomphil

[Blue blood]

40 minutes ago, Dreams of 1995 said:

This is the problem with 'painting yourselves into a corner'.

Anybody who denies Walton hasn't improved massively over the course of the season is simply in denial. He's a good goalkeeper and is showing that. If we managed to sign Walton in summer I'd be delighted.

I would like a number 2 but having Walton as our number 1 is good enough for me. This talk of signing Walton as a number 2, "only being worth 500k" sounds full of bitterness and is overly unpleasant just for the sake of it.

The inference is that the first half of the season was poor! Which it was, with error after error. Second half of the  season has been a different story and he's beginning to win me over with some quality displays. 

The more I think about it though the whole Walton on loan has been an almighty muck up with no permanent option to sign/fee agreed before hand. My reasoning is as follows: 

1) First half of the season, him learning on the job cost us a number of points with his errors. 

2) If that's your young keeper the errors may be worth it as over the long term they develop into a good keeper. This seems to be what is happening with Walton but he's not ours so we don't get the long term benefits. Just half a season of poor and half a season of good. And then we are back to no keeper. 

3) Because he has improved we now won't be able to afford him. So we put in the effort and take the cost of him learning and Brighton get the benefit. We are no further forward than before. 

So yeah am delighted he has got better and now is an asset to the team but the whole thing has really been done in a way that minimises the benefit to us. 

Of course there's also the risk that his more natural quality is the first half of the season and this is his best patch. However coming off his best form the price will be higher so even if we can afford him it is a gamble. 

Added to which there were decent other keepers about. I get that Tosin and ball playing centre backs are rarer and harder to find and therefore a loan may be necessary but the keeper situation has just been overly messy imo.

[Bigdoggsteel]

23 minutes ago, Blue blood said:

The inference is that the first half of the season was poor! Which it was, with error after error. Second half of the  season has been a different story and he's beginning to win me over with some quality displays. 

The more I think about it though the whole Walton on loan has been an almighty muck up with no permanent option to sign/fee agreed before hand. My reasoning is as follows: 

1) First half of the season, him learning on the job cost us a number of points with his errors. 

2) If that's your young keeper the errors may be worth it as over the long term they develop into a good keeper. This seems to be what is happening with Walton but he's not ours so we don't get the long term benefits. Just half a season of poor and half a season of good. And then we are back to no keeper. 

3) Because he has improved we now won't be able to afford him. So we put in the effort and take the cost of him learning and Brighton get the benefit. We are no further forward than before. 

So yeah am delighted he has got better and now is an asset to the team but the whole thing has really been done in a way that minimises the benefit to us. 

Of course there's also the risk that his more natural quality is the first half of the season and this is his best patch. However coming off his best form the price will be higher so even if we can afford him it is a gamble. 

Added to which there were decent other keepers about. I get that Tosin and ball playing centre backs are rarer and harder to find and therefore a loan may be necessary but the keeper situation has just been overly messy imo.

Compete over exaggeration. 

[Leonard Venkhater]

8 minutes ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

Compete over exaggeration. 

Not looked through any stats, but it certainly resonates with my perception. Maybe, "error after error" is slightly overstating it, but he certainly cost us points early on..

[Bigdoggsteel]

10 minutes ago, Leonard Venkhater said:

Not looked through any stats, but it certainly resonates with my perception. Maybe, "error after error" is slightly overstating it, but he certainly cost us points early on..

Excactly, that's my point. He made a few mistakes, but he also did some good stuff. To sum the first half as mistake after mistake is unfair 

[Blue blood]

18 minutes ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

Compete over exaggeration. 

Not at all. How many early mistakes were there in the first half of the season? Go through the game threads and in about half a dozen you see Walton cited by lots of posters as costing us goals and looking unconvincing. If pretending he is still rubbish is a false narrative then pretending he was good in the first half of the season is equally fictitious. 

[Bigdoggsteel]

1 minute ago, Blue blood said:

Not at all. How many early mistakes were there in the first half of the season? Go through the game threads and in about half a dozen you see Walton cited by lots of posters as costing us goals and looking unconvincing. If pretending he is still rubbish is a false narrative then pretending he was good in the first half of the season is equally fictitious. 

The "half dozen" could be disputed. 2 stick out in my mind. He also did plenty well. He has certainly improved, but I think some are exaggerating about how "bad" he was. He was up and down. Good that he has found some consistency now anyway. 

[Blue blood]

Just now, Bigdoggsteel said:

The "half dozen" could be disputed. 2 stick out in my mind. He also did plenty well. He has certainly improved, but I think some are exaggerating about how "bad" he was. He was up and down. Good that he has found some consistency now anyway. 

Agree with the latter. Don't think there was much exaggeration of his poor form, although without going back and reviewing it's hard to prove. He certainly wasn't anywhere near the levels he is currently at, which is what we want from a keeper, and what would turn him into a good signing.  i'm very glad he has shown that improvement. 

[Bigdoggsteel]

Just now, Blue blood said:

Agree with the latter. Don't think there was much exaggeration of his poor form, although without going back and reviewing it's hard to prove. He certainly wasn't anywhere near the levels he is currently at, which is what we want from a keeper, and what would turn him into a good signing.  i'm very glad he has shown that improvement. 

I would say like many situations on here, one side exaggerate how poor he was, whereas others exaggerate how good he is  I think thats online discussion in general, difficult to find middle ground

I think he is solid from crosses and has his moments shot stopping. Kicking is actually really good I think and loves a quick throw. He doesn't strike meas very athletic when it comes to getting out to one on ones though, Raya was/is better there. 

[Blue blood]

1 minute ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

I would say like many situations on here, one side exaggerate how poor he was, whereas others exaggerate how good he is  I think thats online discussion in general, difficult to find middle ground

I think he is solid from crosses and has his moments shot stopping. Kicking is actually really good I think and loves a quick throw. He doesn't strike meas very athletic when it comes to getting out to one on ones though, Raya was/is better there. 

Yes I think it is hard be it the pub or internet to find the middle ground. For me I think perhaps for me it's a bit of both - as in he is showing us both ends of the spectrum of how bad and how good he can be. Can remember some awful games earlier on but equally some impressive performances of late. I also wonder if the balance is hard to find based on the prior keeper(s) they are replacing. Anyone after Friedel would have looked bad but more realistically anyone who could catch a cross compared with Raya would look more solid, anyone's kicking would suffer in comparison to Robinson's and anyone after Steele would look like Gordon Banks. 

[tomphil]

I think if we step away from comparing him to Raya it gives a better idea of what he's about. Raya i think is a bit of an enigma you'll not find many better at getting down quick and reflex saves but some things with him i'm not sure he'll ever improve on.

What we need is a steady keeper who's going to settle here between the sticks for a number of years. Not stop gaps and experiments to see if we can make a few quid just a reliable sort, solid if unspectacular.  Walton looks like he might develop into someone steady, well by this eras standards anyway. I prefer to look at him as a better version of Steele at the min.

Not saying much i know but he's doing ok it would have been easy to go backwards after a ropey start but he's improved so must have something about him.

[Bigdoggsteel]

3 minutes ago, tomphil said:

I think if we step away from comparing him to Raya it gives a better idea of what he's about. Raya i think is a bit of an enigma you'll not find many better at getting down quick and reflex saves but some things with him i'm not sure he'll ever improve on.

What we need is a steady keeper who's going to settle here between the sticks for a number of years. Not stop gaps and experiments to see if we can make a few quid just a reliable sort, solid if unspectacular.  Walton looks like he might develop into someone steady, well by this eras standards anyway. I prefer to look at him as a better version of Steele at the min.

Not saying much i know but he's doing ok it would have been easy to go backwards after a ropey start but he's improved so must have something about him.

This 

[BlackburnEnd75]

As of the end of season I had in my head that Walton will only have one year left on his contract. So by the time he leaves at the end of 20/21 season he would be 25 and thus Brighton get nothing for him. He's not better than Ryan and is what third choice there atm? So unless they go down I would say that he would be available between £1-2 million, ideally we would try structure it so we dont pay a lot up front.

I would take him for that as our number one but we would definitely need to improve on Leutwiler who just isnt a viable alternative.

[Bigdoggsteel]

3 minutes ago, BlackburnEnd75 said:

As of the end of season I had in my head that Walton will only have one year left on his contract. So by the time he leaves at the end of 20/21 season he would be 25 and thus Brighton get nothing for him. He's not better than Ryan and is what third choice there atm? So unless they go down I would say that he would be available between £1-2 million, ideally we would try structure it so we dont pay a lot up front.

I would take him for that as our number one but we would definitely need to improve on Leutwiler who just isnt a viable alternative.

We would do very well to get him for that much. Raya went for £3-4 mil wasn't? Steele left here for £500,000.

 

Edited March 3, 2020 by Bigdoggsteel

[BlackburnEnd75]

4 hours ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

We would do very well to get him for that much. Raya went for £3-4 mil wasn't? Steele left here for £500,000.

 

Raya had longer left on his contract presumably. Also we I assume weren't as willing to selling as Brightom presumably would be