Not good news for Max, but hopefully he’s established himself as a Championship level keeper now, and with a good World Cup he could be in for a few offers.
And always the possibility, given his record, he hangs in there at Millwall and gets more opportunities to prove himself, even if he temporarily loses his place.
If he’s really lucky, the best case scenario is, they go up take him with them and he does something similar in the PL that he’s done in the Championship! I guess that’s the potentially good news. The club where he’s put in some very good performances thinks it might go up. Even if they’re getting competition in, perhaps he’ll play some PL next season.
Now we just have to hope that this wasn’t the last game for Max Crocombe as Millwall’s top dog because the thing that’s been teased all month finally happened: the Lions signed Anthony Patterson on loan from Sunderland, the keeper who kept 14 clean sheets in 45 apps for his parent club on their way to promotion (he was excellent in the playoff final too) and has previously worked with Millwall coach Alex Neil.
He’d fallen down the pecking order at Sunderland after they signed a couple new fellas for the Premier League but Millwall needed another goalie anyway after Steven Benda was recalled by Fulham (due to Crocombe taking his starting spot) and now here we are. This seems like a dude who’d expect to be the first choice, yet Crocs does have plenty of money in the bank thanks to his own fine performances.
Just gotta see how this unfolds... Crocombe has risen to the challenge every other time he’s had to fight for his position these last few years, including earlier this season when he overhauled Benda.
Millwall Director of Football Steve Gannon: “I am delighted to welcome Anthony [Patterson] to the football club. He has big-game experience under his belt and he was ever-present for Sunderland last year. He will now link-up with the goalkeeping department and add competition with regards to a starting position. There were a lot of clubs interested in Anthony, so I am very pleased that he selected us.”
Bit of a career defining few weeks for Crocs, if he's still starting in a months time it's a massive endorsement of his ability. As others have said, Patterson is a very good keeper at this level.
He may well be a victim of Milwall's success/ambition if he does get ousted, as he's definitely proved himself worthy of playing week in week out in the championship. He's starting to quietly get the recognition for it here too
Max Crocombe saw Millwall sign a new goalkeeper and then pointed him to the vacant spot on the bench, as he kept his ninth clean sheet of the season in a 2-0 win away vs Wrexham (and Libby Cacace)#FlyingKiwispic.twitter.com/RreRr1Zixe
Great keeping. And also the Wrexham boss will be looking at the quality of Libby’s delivery there, knowing the 3-4 strikers they have and be cursing his injury. You’re Keiffer Moore, Rodriguez, Hardie you want to be seeing more of that.
(Wrexham 2-0) was his ninth clean sheet of the season with only Carl Rushworth (Coventry) and Thomas Kaminski (Charlton) having more and they’re both only one ahead on 10 clean sheets despite playing way more games. Crocombe now has the best save percentage in the division (76.0%) and ranks fourth for goals prevented, having only allowed 24 goals from 27.2 xGOT
Millwall with Max Crocombe in goal:
39 points from 22 games (1.77/g) W11 D6 L5 with 30 GF, 24 GA (+6 GD) 9 clean sheets
Arguably, if he holds his form could potentially head into the off season, off contract as the goalkeeper of the year in the Championship.
If he managed that, and then had a decent Wordl Cup campaign (if he holds the starting role) it would be very interesting to see where he could end up.
He's probably done more than enough with Millwall this season that even if he is stuck unjustly riding the pine for remainder of season he'll have no shortage of suitors in the Championship next season.
Fortunately for Crocs, Millwall are out of the FA Cup. They were rotating keepers through the Cup comps earlier. Benda's last game in goal for Millwall was a 5-1 loss to Burnley in the FA version.
So it's unlikely this new keeper Patterson will get a chance, unless Crocombe really a has a bad stinker one day in the Championship.
What now for Crocs? Match highlights from Millwall's 1-3 home loss to lowly Pompey. No real clangers by Crocombe's replacement Patterson. But a costly loss for Millwall https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IsV1-BNgiU
Hope they drop like a stone if he's not starting. GK and Defence were the aspects of Milwall's side that were the least of their concern, seems like terrible squad management to bring in a former favourite keeper when the incumbent has been incredibly good
As above he's on the Ben Foster podcast, which has lots of stuff about the AWs and the World Cup. Lots of wows about how far our players have to travel.
Been in the UK a long time, and like Woodsy he sounds much like a Brit now. I think he's Wood's new AWs bestie now that Tommy Smith is out of the squad. https://youtu.be/4ECpA-Mrgus?si=0ugmRjbjOBDzKPNu
Niche Cache.
And, well, the thing we feared at Millwall happened with Sunderland loanee and January signing Anthony Patterson picked ahead of Max Crocombe for their game against Portsmouth. Snapped a 23-game run of consecutive Championship starts for Crocs, following on from a bad mistake last week. Rare though that error may have been, Patterson’s been given several weeks to settle at the club and was always going to be pushing to play at some stage. The hope is that this was merely a bit of rotation to keep everyone on their toes. The worry is that this was the intention all along from manager Alex Neill.
But Patterson didn’t exactly deliver a blinder on debut as they lost 3-1 at home against Pompey – the first time in more than two months that the Lions have shipped three goals in a league game. The first goal was a parried save that was scored on the follow-up - exactly what happened with Crocombe last week so fair’s fair, right? We’ll see what happens next week, when Millwall have two games to play.
Hope they drop like a stone if he's not starting. GK and Defence were the aspects of Milwall's side that were the least of their concern, seems like terrible squad management to bring in a former favourite keeper when the incumbent has been incredibly good
reminiscent of what Woods club owner did regards managers end of last season? or the nix with their goalkeeper on the weekend?
Can Millwall (3rd, 62 pts) catch Middlesbrough (2nd, 63 pts) for the 2nd automatic promotion spot?
Middlesbrough a game in hand.
Maybe all a bit moot, as I think Crocs want to leave Millwall if they go up.
Watching the recent podcast with Ben Foster, Crocs openly says he hates not having a real chance to be the no 1 at a club, ie much prefers to play and will gladly move elsewhere if it looks like he will never play, and the gaffer tells him he's going to be no 2/3 in the pecking order.
Can Millwall (3rd, 62 pts) catch Middlesbrough (2nd, 63 pts) for the 2nd automatic promotion spot?
Middlesbrough a game in hand.
Maybe all a bit moot, as I think Crocs want to leave Millwall if they go up.
Watching the recent podcast with Ben Foster, Crocs openly says he hates not being the no 1 at a club, ie much prefers to play and will gladly move elsewhere if it looks like he will never play, and the gaffer tells him he's going to be no 2/3 in the pecking order.
........Max Crocombe. He was playing brilliant footy, helping lead the Lions up into the playoff mix, then they signed one of the coach’s old keepers on loan from a Premier League club. At first Crocombe held onto his spot as they eased Anthony Patterson in... then Crocs made one mistake in a 2-1 win against Sheffield Wednesday and he promptly dropped to the bench. Patterson made the same mistake, parrying a save out in front of him for a rebound goal, in a loss to Portsmouth on debut but he retained his spot for the next two matches and both were comfortable clean sheets wins: 3-0 vs Birmingham, 2-0 vs Preston. Here’s what the gaffer said after the Portsmouth game...
Alex Neil, Millwall coach: “Not really. We had the last game against Sheffield Wednesday. I could easily sort of flipped it then. Obviously, Max made a bit of an error in the last game. But what I do think is we’ve got thirteen games left, and if something had happened to Max, whether it be today, the next game, whatever, we’re putting whoever in the goal a little bit cold at that point. We’ve still got another thirteen games to go. I know right now, every single moment feels like a cup final. We’ve got loads of the season still to go.”
That would seem to imply that Crocombe was still the number one and they were just trying to get Patterson some reps so that he’d be ready if called upon again. Except now Patterson has started three in a row and since his rusty debut has looked pretty comfortable. Credit where it’s due. Patterson helped Sunderland get promoted through the playoffs last season and had played 138 Championship games prior to this season compared to Crocombe’s zero. Working his way up from the lower divisions, Crocombe has constantly had to overcome stigmas about his resume and the same remains true in the Championship.
At least it seems that playing Patterson was the plan all along so it’s less that Crocs was dropped for one mistake against Sheff Weds and more that it was the trigger for what was inevitable all along. Crocombe is only on a one-year contract and he now has a bank of proof that he can hold his own in the Champo. Not to mention a World Cup to (potentially) put him in the spotlight before next season. His chance might come around again before this season is done but even if it doesn’t he’s going to land on his feet somewhere.
