Joe Gauci

[Andy_10]

I am not a huge fan of Gauci.

I wasn't overly happy when he signed because I have just spent the past three years of watching him not be the best keeper in Australia when the best keeper was a 36 (now 39) year old player whose best days were four years with Wycombe in League Two before drifting off into obscurity down to non league, before joining Brisbane Roar & then becoming the best keeper in the whole competition (closely followed by Ollie Sale in my humble opinion), & moving to ManC Australian club Melbourne City.

Yes, he can show good fundamentals & is a pretty good shot stopper, but mistakes like last nights misjudgement coming for the ball & missing it completely are a fairly regular occurrence in his game.

Is he better than Olsen?

As Olsen has errors in his game & is pretty terrible at every other element of being a keeper, he probably is, but I don't think Gaucis ceiling is so high that the trade off for his errors are worth the long term effort.

 

[Steero113]

5 minutes ago, Andy_10 said:

I am not a huge fan of Gauci.

I wasn't overly happy when he signed because I have just spent the past three years of watching him not be the best keeper in Australia when the best keeper was a 36 (now 39) year old player whose best days were four years with Wycombe in League Two before drifting off into obscurity down to non league, before joining Brisbane Roar & then becoming the best keeper in the whole competition (closely followed by Ollie Sale in my humble opinion), & moving to ManC Australian club Melbourne City.

Yes, he can show good fundamentals & is a pretty good shot stopper, but mistakes like last nights misjudgement coming for the ball & missing it completely are a fairly regular occurrence in his game.

Is he better than Olsen?

As Olsen has errors in his game & is pretty terrible at every other element of being a keeper, he probably is, but I don't think Gaucis ceiling is so high that the trade off for his errors are worth the long term effort.

 

I'm watching what he does for Aston Villa. 

Not what he did as a youngster in a mickey mouse league. 

Thought it was a very strong initial showing on debut last night. Looks at the very least as good of an option as Robin Olsen.  

 

[Andy_10]

3 minutes ago, Steero113 said:

I'm watching what he does for Aston Villa. 

Not what he did as a youngster in a mickey mouse league. 

Thought it was a very strong initial showing on debut last night. Looks at the very least as good of an option as Robin Olsen.  

 

And that is your right. 

I will continue to do what I always do, which is look at everything I can, 'before', looking at his time at Aston Villa.

Which is why last nights erraticism didn't shock me when he was caught flapping under that ball he missed. 

But, neither did the decent save that he made either.

[Steero113]

5 minutes ago, Andy_10 said:

And that is your right. 

I will continue to do what I always do, which is look at everything I can, 'before', looking at his time at Aston Villa.

Which is why last nights erraticism didn't shock me when he was caught flapping under that ball he missed. 

But, neither did the decent save that he made either.

In order to be 'caught' flapping under that ball he missed (which he actually connected with), it would require a negative consequence. Of which there was none. 

You've set a fairly high bar for your reserve goalkeeper standards if you think that he was anything other than solid last night, especially on his debut for the club. 

[nepal_villan]

30 minutes ago, Andy_10 said:

I am not a huge fan of Gauci.

I wasn't overly happy when he signed because I have just spent the past three years of watching him not be the best keeper in Australia when the best keeper was a 36 (now 39) year old player whose best days were four years with Wycombe in League Two before drifting off into obscurity down to non league, before joining Brisbane Roar & then becoming the best keeper in the whole competition (closely followed by Ollie Sale in my humble opinion), & moving to ManC Australian club Melbourne City.

Yes, he can show good fundamentals & is a pretty good shot stopper, but mistakes like last nights misjudgement coming for the ball & missing it completely are a fairly regular occurrence in his game.

Is he better than Olsen?

As Olsen has errors in his game & is pretty terrible at every other element of being a keeper, he probably is, but I don't think Gaucis ceiling is so high that the trade off for his errors are worth the long term effort.

 

I totally get where you are coming from.  As someone who used to watch a lot of French league and Lyon specifically, I was similarly critical of Bertrand Traore and especially the fee we paid for him. 

I prefer Gauci to Olsen, but guess that is not saying much. Still don't understand why we let Sinisalo go - seemed like a very promising prospect.

 

[Andy_10]

2 minutes ago, Steero113 said:

In order to be 'caught' flapping under that ball he missed (which he actually connected with), it would require a negative consequence. Of which there was none. 

You've set a fairly high bar for your reserve goalkeeper standards if you think that he was anything other than solid last night, especially on his debut for the club. 

I disagree. He made an error & was fortunate that it didn't cost us.

But Im not going to sit here & argue semantics with you about one particular word.

I set the bar high for all of our signings.

And I didn't say that he wasn't "solid". I merely pointed out that his error didn't surprise me because I have seen it before with him. Which is why I mentioned my overall view of him, including both positive & negative, before I mentioned anything about the game, for the sake of context. 

I also added that the decent save that he made didn't surprise me either because I said that he was a decent shot-stopper with good fundamentals.

I find the whole Gauci situation interesting. Whenever I have a conversation about him, people tend to get a little overly defensive of him & I don't know why.

Especially when they have never seen him play before. 

[Steero113]

1 minute ago, Andy_10 said:

I disagree. He made an error & was fortunate that it didn't cost us.

But Im not going to sit here & argue semantics with you about one particular word.

I set the bar high for all of our signings.

And I didn't say that he wasn't "solid". I merely pointed out that his error didn't surprise me because I have seen it before with him. Which is why I mentioned my overall view of him, including both positive & negative, before I mentioned anything about the game, for the sake of context. 

I also added that the decent save that he made didn't surprise me either because I said that he was a decent shot-stopper with good fundamentals.

I find the whole Gauci situation interesting. Whenever I have a conversation about him, people tend to get a little overly defensive of him & I don't know why.

Especially when they have never seen him play before. 

Yeah fair enough mate. 

I like to view each of our signings from day 1 with us, and not judge them based on what they may or may not have done before, especially when they are super young. 

The signing of Morgan Rogers has taught me that. 

[Andy_10]

5 minutes ago, nepal_villan said:

I totally get where you are coming from.  As someone who used to watch a lot of French league and Lyon specifically, I was similarly critical of Bertrand Traore and especially the fee we paid for him. 

I prefer Gauci to Olsen, but guess that is not saying much. Still don't understand why we let Sinisalo go - seemed like a very promising prospect.

 

Yeah, I was surprised that we let Sinisalo go.

Even if he wanted game time, it's not like he was ever going to get it at Celtic after they signed Smeichel (sp?).

Maybe we are moulding Proctor or Zych while we use Gauci as number 3.

Personally, I probably prefer Gauci as number 2, but that is only because Olsen is so bad.

Ideally, neither are at the club though.

[Alakagom]

Emi's extension likely means he's staying with us for 5 years (unless release clause included), no hugely talented keeper will be signing for us in their mid 20s just to ride the bench for that long. Joe is perfect diamond in the rough that likely will be happy to play second fiddle while slowly learning the ropes and hoping to become future no1. We seem to have pretty big focus on signing many hugely talented keepers into our youth ranks which is the likelier long term plan to replace Emi. 

 

[Stevo985]

1 hour ago, Steero113 said:

In order to be 'caught' flapping under that ball he missed (which he actually connected with), it would require a negative consequence. Of which there was none. 

I was happy with his performance and think he looks promising, but this logic is pretty flimsy

[abdulaziz1]

The good thing is he can play our style, for now he can help us, however we can start looking in getting a better prospect/backup, maybe while increasing his value a bit. While Olsen contract running. Won’t be easy to attract one though.

[Ponky]

I've seen plenty of Gauci and he has some excellent attributes but needs work. I've seen him make some world class saves, but I've also seen him easily beaten by shots he should save. With my Melbourne Victory hat on I always felt he was a tad overrated but could see decent potential in him.

He's only 23 and only played a couple of seasons as a senior keeper so he's got some learning to do and experience to gain without a doubt, especially in English conditions.

What he does have over the other young keepers we have is experience in high pressure matches in front of 30k people. However, I think he needs matches and a solid season on loan. Playing 5-6 cup games a season won't do much for his development.

 

[Teale's 'tache]

10 minutes ago, Ponky said:

I've seen plenty of Gauci and he has some excellent attributes but needs work. I've seen him make some world class saves, but I've also seen him easily beaten by shots he should save. With my Melbourne Victory hat on I always felt he was a tad overrated but could see decent potential in him.

He's only 23 and only played a couple of seasons as a senior keeper so he's got some learning to do and experience to gain without a doubt, especially in English conditions.

What he does have over the other young keepers we have is experience in high pressure matches in front of 30k people. However, I think he needs matches and a solid season on loan. Playing 5-6 cup games a season won't do much for his development.

 

I think Gauci is a bit of a project player for us, we've seen some attributes we like, but we also think he's a player with the right attitude to learn and improve in the direction we push him, as such I would think our plan is to work with him on the training ground to begin with to really mould him in to the style we want him to play, and then depending on how that goes we may loan him out to a team that plays a similar style to us, or look to integrate him a little more in to the first team to eventually replace Martinez. As you say he has decent experience for his age, so I don't think there's a big rush to get him out playing first team football like you'd usually want with a young keeper.

We've enough keepers at the club that he could of been loaned out last window if we wanted, I'm sure there'd of been plenty of takers down the league, but as there were no links as far as I can remember I don't think that is the immediate plan for him. Next summer after a years more coaching could possibly see him off on loan, though Olsens contract I think runs out then, so depending on how he does he could be our legitimate backup next season.

[StewieGriffin]

I thought he was solid enough. He had one very noticeable flap, but immediately claimed the resulting corner confidently. He seemed decisive, looked decent with the ball at his feet and made a decent save or two - I don't think this forum has ever agreed on that outlook after an Olsen appearance...

Not sure he'll be long term #2 / Emi replacement, but I'm assuming Olsen won't be here next season...

[Panto_Villan]

8 hours ago, nepal_villan said:

I totally get where you are coming from.  As someone who used to watch a lot of French league and Lyon specifically, I was similarly critical of Bertrand Traore and especially the fee we paid for him. 

I prefer Gauci to Olsen, but guess that is not saying much. Still don't understand why we let Sinisalo go - seemed like a very promising prospect.

 

 

8 hours ago, Andy_10 said:

Yeah, I was surprised that we let Sinisalo go.

Even if he wanted game time, it's not like he was ever going to get it at Celtic after they signed Smeichel (sp?).

Maybe we are moulding Proctor or Zych while we use Gauci as number 3.

Personally, I probably prefer Gauci as number 2, but that is only because Olsen is so bad.

Ideally, neither are at the club though.

I genuinely spent about two minutes wondering why you were double posting contradictory things in this thread until the penny dropped.

[nepal_villan]

20 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

 

I genuinely spent about two minutes wondering why you were double posting contradictory things in this thread until the penny dropped.

Two things can be true at the same time - no?  Thought Gauci did well - given there would be some nerves for his first start.  At the same time don't understand why we let Sinisalo go.

Or were you alluding to something else?

[Panto_Villan]

1 minute ago, nepal_villan said:

Two things can be true at the same time - no?  Thought Gauci did well - given there would be some nerves for his first start.  At the same time don't understand why we let Sinisalo go.

Or were you alluding to something else?

You've both got the same avatar image - I was reading on a phone and it wasn't immediately apparent you were different people.

[MaVilla]

im not gonna judge him after his first start, whether he will develop to be good enough for us, i guess only time will tell, he did some decent stuff, as well as some not so decent stuff.

However, on the flip side, if Olsen had made the errors that Gauci made in that game, Olsen would have been hung, drawn and quartered.

Even with the goal, if Olsen had let that in, many people would be screaming about how he was beaten at his near post etc.

[Vive_La_Villa]

I thought he did well but it's hard to see a top keeper in the making.  Doesn't seem to have the presence. 
 

Keepers can develop quite late though so has plenty of time on his side.

Edited September 25 by Vive_La_Villa

[T-Dog]

His performance yesterday was sound, couple of moments where he could have made different decisions, but also a couple of moments where he really looked good.

He was also playing behind two defenders (not about them, but relevant) who got bullied for most of the game. That's not a great baseline for an unexperienced keeper to start from, because he's gonna be nervous anyway, more so when Wycombe forced more chances than they deserved.

AND - either the coaching is clearly going from top to bottom through the squads, or he's been working with Emi and the GK crew a lot, because the way he held the ball, the way he allowed the pressure was very Martinez-esq, but didn't look forced either. 

Looked decent, very little to moan about, much to enjoy.