I have seen by now pages and pages of people (myself included) agonising over a performance of an 18-year old newbie keeper that our coaches had faith in enough to play in a season opener. So when would you like the coaches to "blood" him? In the finals, when one keeper is for example injured and another for example unavailable 'for personal reasons'? Talk about putting pressure on a young kid. Yes it was nervy to watch but the first game of the season is not a matter of life and death and I am happy to cut him some slack.
However, this was also first game for Kadlujerovic who is surely more pricey than Smith and is expected to deliver goals for us this season. I have not seen much from him apart from maybe one good shot on the goal or another one or two deft touches. Yet nobody has so far said a word about his largely MIA performance. We could calculate his weekly wages and then compare it to Smith's wages. So is it OK to cut him this much slack based on this game compared to how little slack are people ready to give Smith based on this game?
I am not saying Smith should be our first choice keeper. He is still very much in a development stage and I hope this experience will have helped him. Also, I would like to think that Kadjulerovic will deliver as season unfolds. So all I would like to see here is some sense of balance and perspective in analysing our first outing. Yes playing Smith was a potential banana skin, but he was not necessarily the worst one on the park.
Probably because Kadjulerovic barely got passed the ball.
Sure. But that was not my point; it was just one example of what we could agonise over instead of how Keegan-Smith performed in the goal.
For example, I could substitute "Abbas" for "Kadjulerovic" and have a similar rant just as I did above.