Stats week at Niche Cache. Sadly Paulsen's time in Poland doesn't make pretty reading.
The goss he will next be loaned out a Dutch or Belgian club. Needs to work on his physicality.
Lechia Gdansk scored the same amount of goals as the champions Lech Poznan yet they got relegated. They even had the Golden Boot winner in their team in Tomáš Bobček. They conceded the most goals (1.91 per 90) despite only facing the sixth most shots on target (4.35 per 90) and 11th most shots overall (13.5 per 90). Opposition teams scored from 13% of their shots versus Lechia, easily the highest figure in the division, and the team-wide save percentage of 60.1% was also dead last. Not all of that was AP, who played in 24/32 games, but his personal save percentage was only marginally better at 61%. Didn’t even save any of the five penalties he faced. There’s not a lot to brag about here...
And so now the focus shifts back to Bournemouth where he’s now two years into a four year contract. One year spent on loan in Auckland. One year spent on loan in Poland. He spent the majority of preseason with the Cherries ahead of the Lechia move so they’ll have a pretty good idea of where he’s at – and they were reportedly very hands-on when he got injured for a spell in Poland, bringing him back to England for check-ups with their own medical team. But despite a little bit of goalkeeping confusion behind number one Djordje Petrovic - with Fraser Forster signed on short-term free and Christos Mandas picked up on loan from Lazio in January to allow Will Dennis to go out on loan to Leyton Orient - reports suggest that Paulsen’s not going to be in that frame next season. Rather, they want to keep Forster as an experienced GK3 and bring in someone else (maybe even another loan for Mandas) to keep the heat on Petrovic... and also probably to alternate with him after the Cherries qualified for the Europa League with a sixth-placed finish.
Bournemouth Echo: “Another keeper who will head back out on loan from Bournemouth is Alex Paulsen. The Kiwi keeper had plenty of gametime at Lechia Gdansk, but they were relegated. Bournemouth believe Paulsen needs to build his physicality as he is not ready for that aspect of the Premier League in particular, so they will be looking to loan him to a team in a league like the Belgian or Dutch top flights.”
Curious that Belgium and Netherlands are the spots mentioned. Those are two common loan destinations for foreign players at English clubs, partly because those are two of the younger and more forgiving leagues for players to settle at (relatively speaking) and partly also because of the easier work permit regulations. Paulsen has Namibian and South African heritage plus he’s not actually played very many international games so it’d probably be tricky for him to get a loan move within England – although when it comes to football there’s always a loophole for every rule. The other thing emphasised in that excerpt is that, same as with Polish media worrying about his lack of height, it seems Bournemouth also have physicality on their minds. AP’s gonna have to hit the gym.
