Super Samson

[Pettywulliegrew-2]

Initially was pleased when we signed him as a back up goalie.....as he seemed to be a journey man solid pro and never really featured in his first season

 

In hindsight when you look at his career stats Samson has never had more than two years at any of the numerous clubs that he has ( possibly the misfortune) played at........conceivably because he's pants/ stays on his line/ seems to parry shots back into play/ makes his defence nervous/ shite etc etc etc

 

Agree that booing/clapping him ain't gonae help us till the end of the season,as he is our current no1.....with the prospect of 4/6 games stil to go

 

We win as a team and lose as a team

[Burn_Broomfield]

You always looked forward to playing a team that had Samson in goal as there was a higher than normal chance of picking up cheap goals. Now we're the team everyone wants to play for that very reason. How he has forged a career in professional football is a mystery.

[capt_oats]

There's absolutely nothing about Samson being here that I understand tbh. When Baraclough signed him we had 2 goalkeepers in Ripley & Twardzik, OK it was clear he didn't rate Twardzik (with good reason) but it meant Samson negotiated his release from Killie, unhappy that he'd been relegated to sitting on the bench behind MacDonald, to come and sit on the bench at Fir Park.

 

Ripley's loan was up in January last year but rather than install Samson as #1 (given he was unhappy at not getting 1st team football at Rugby Park) we instead released Twardzik (again, fair enough) and actively sought to extend Ripley's loan. Thus meaning Samson had been at the club since 15th September 2015 yet didn't actually play a single minute of 1st team football until 23rd April 2016. That surely cements the notion that we didn't think he was a good enough goalkeeper to be our #1.

 

Given all of the above, for some inexplicable reason, we then offered him a new deal (on reduced terms) that he accepted to our misfortune.

 

With hindsight, Ripley went back to Boro after his loan, we released Brett Long last summer as well so had Samson moved on we'd have gone into the pre-season with no goalkeepers. I'm obviously speculating here but it looks like we've offered Samson a deal because he was at the club already, had shown a bit of patience last season and was an "experienced" goalkeeper (though not actually a good one). There really seems to have been an attitude of "how bad can he be?" and with him taking up the reduced terms on offer we've actually thought we were getting a reasonable deal out of it. If you do enough digging on here I think you'll find more than a few mentions of him being "a solid pro", "an experienced goalkeeper" etc etc. I think it was Onthefringes who absolutely called it in terms of how Samson signing would pan out though.

 

I don't often criticise the club but the decision to retain Samson as #1, with him already having been at the club and not having been viewed a viable option as 1st choice going into the 2nd half of the season in place of Ripley, has been proven to have been disastrous. To me it smacked of laziness and us simply shrugging our shoulders and deciding "he'll do" as it meant we didn't have to think about the GK position as we'd filled the jersey with a body. You could maybe argue that the hope would have been that Brill would have offered genuine competition but again, he was a player who had played 20 mins of football in about 18 months and was coming back from serious injury. It speaks volumes that Brill hasn't even managed a game for Colchester since his release in January, fair enough we took a punt on him but he's absolutely shot.

 

You can point to the fact that we were sitting Top 6 at the end of the January window as a mitigating factor and yes he's not the sole factor with regards our awful defensive record but given the goals we've shipped that have been a result of Samson then for us not to have acknowledged and addressed that in January is absolutely remarkable. That a manager watched his goalkeeper literally drop the ball in front of forwards and consistently palm the ball to the feet of opposition players and thought "this is fine" beggars belief.

[eddiemunster]

He couldn't keep weans out a close.

[Kmcalpin]

To me it smacked of laziness and us simply shrugging our shoulders and deciding "he'll do" allowing us not to bother thinking about the GK position as we'd filled the jersey with a body.

My thoughts too. Good post.

 

Although you cite laziness specifically in relation to Samson's re-signing you could also apply that to several others too. It seems to be a hallmark of our approach to signing players last summer.

[milo]

There's absolutely nothing about Samson being here that I understand tbh. When Baraclough signed him we had 2 goalkeepers in Ripley & Twardzik, OK it was clear he didn't rate Twardzik (with good reason) but it meant Samson negotiated his release from Killie, unhappy that he'd been relegated to sitting on the bench behind MacDonald, to come and sit on the bench at Fir Park.

 

Ripley's loan was up in January last year but rather than install Samson as #1 (given he was unhappy at not getting 1st team football at Rugby Park) we instead released Twardzik (again, fair enough) and actively sought to extend Ripley's loan. Thus meaning Samson had been at the club since 15th September 2015 yet didn't actually play a single minute of 1st team football until 23rd April 2016. That surely cements the notion that we didn't think he was a good enough goalkeeper to be our #1.

 

Given all of the above, for some inexplicable reason, we then offered him a new deal (on reduced terms) that he accepted to our misfortune.

 

With hindsight, Ripley went back to Boro after his loan, we released Brett Long last summer as well so had Samson moved on we'd have gone into the pre-season with no goalkeepers. I'm obviously speculating here but it looks like we've offered Samson a deal because he was at the club already, had shown a bit of patience last season and was an "experienced" goalkeeper (though not actually a good one). There really seems to have been an attitude of "how bad can he be?" and with him taking up the reduced terms on offer we've actually thought we were getting a reasonable deal out of it. If you do enough digging on here I think you'll find more than a few mentions of him being "a solid pro", "an experienced goalkeeper" etc etc. I think it was Onthefringes who absolutely called it in terms of how Samson signing would pan out though.

 

I don't often criticise the club but the decision to retain Samson as #1, with him already having been at the club and not having been viewed a viable option as 1st choice going into the 2nd half of the season in place of Ripley, has been proven to have been disastrous. To me it smacked of laziness and us simply shrugging our shoulders and deciding "he'll do" as it meant we didn't have to think about the GK position as we'd filled the jersey with a body. You could maybe argue that the hope would have been that Brill would have offered genuine competition but again, he was a player who had played 20 mins of football in about 18 months and was coming back from serious injury. It speaks volumes that Brill hasn't even managed a game for Colchester since his release in January, fair enough we took a punt on him but he's absolutely shot.

 

You can point to the fact that we were sitting Top 6 at the end of the January window as a mitigating factor and yes he's not the sole factor with regards our awful defensive record but given the goals we've shipped that have been a result of Samson then for us not to have acknowledged and addressed that in January is absolutely remarkable. That a manager watched his goalkeeper literally drop the ball in front of forwards and consistently palm the ball to the feet of opposition players and thought "this is fine" beggars belief.

Superb post.