History for coochiee

Niche Cache.
As JJ mentioned on Huddersfield's books he will in reality be their 4th-5th GK.

But yeah a pretty rare chance for him (he's always battled around L1 & L2) to be around some keepers with Championship level experience.

Could he do a Crocs and have a late career resurgence up through the English Pyramid? Probably not. Crocs quickly went from No 2/3 choice to no 1 at every UK club since Grimsby 4-5 seasons ago. He was never the 4th choice anywhere.


Deadline day move for Nik Tzanev, get in there pal. He only joined Newport County at the beginning of the season but after a bright first few matches the form dipped and he lost his spot and has been stuck on the bench ever since. Only played made two cup appearances since early October. The dropping was valid, he was conceding a lot of goals and the bloke who replaced him brought an uptick in results... but that didn’t change the fact that Tanz wasn’t in a very happy situation as a reserve goalkeeper for the last-placed team in League Two.

So he’s swapping second choice in League Two for third choice in League One. Huddersfield already have Lee Nicholls as their number one and they recently signed Jak Alnwick for an undisclosed fee from Cardiff City with a contract that includes next season. Tzanev was picked up on a free after Newport agreed to release him early and has only signed until the end of this campaign. Having recently loaned out 25yo Aussie keeper Jacob Chapman to gain experience elsewhere, Tzanev effectively takes his spot in the pecking order for the duration of that loan. Nobody is hiding the fact that this move is about squad depth and that Tanz probably isn’t going to play very many, if any, games of footy for Huddersfield Town. Not that he was playing many for Newport County anyway.

HTFC coach Liam Manning: “Having allowed Jacob Chapman to head out on loan earlier this month, we felt that if the right opportunity came to add another senior goalkeeper to the squad presented itself before the window closed, that would be something worth exploring. With experience of international football and plenty of exposure to the wider EFL and Sky Bet League One in particular, Nik will be able to slot straight into our squad and work alongside Lee and Jak under Chris Elliott from day one.”

Nik Tzanev: “I think it's something that I haven't really had in the past, especially with having two Championship goalkeepers, you know? It will only improve myself and raise my levels and I still as if feel as if I can get better in all in all aspects of my game. Working with Jack and Lee and then also under Chris as well, I think it's going to be a really good environment where we can all I can hopefully push everyone to be better and then take stuff from their game and add it to mine.”

Think of it as four months of professional development. Tanz mentions in that interview vid about how proud he is to represent Aotearoa and how he wants to continue doing so in whatever way possible. His exact words: “obviously playing, I want to get back playing, but if it's contributing to the squad in other ways, then that's what will be the case for now”. They put that clip at the front of the vid to imply he was talking about Huddersfield (and maybe he was, it was a bit of a scattershot chat) but he said that after a question about the All Whites.

Well, the only spot available in the All Whites is GK3 (behind Paulsen and Crocombe)... and there have been times in the last few years when Tzanev seemed like the frontrunner for that selection. But not lately. And it’ll be hard to make a case while he’s sitting on the bench, potentially not even that. However, if Darren Bazeley fancies using that spot on a veteran rather than a prodigious younger talent like Kees Sims or Henry Gray (who are also the next two highest performing keepers at the moment) then at least Tzanev will be getting in some good practice in the role.