'Grbic looks significantly worse than Foderingham'
Goalkeeper Ivo Grbic is proving to be an interesting case study in how long you should give a new signing before passing judgement. Signed in January, the man who previously backed up Jan Oblak at Atletico Madrid has endured a nightmare start with United.
Immediately declared the new number one by manager Chris Wilder, Grbic has started eight Premier League games and struggled massively. Some 21 goals have flown, sailed, deflected and squirmed past him in those eight starts. Throw in his debut in the FA Cup and it’s 26 conceded in nine appearances.
Yes, he’s playing behind a historically bad defence – but Grbic still looks significantly worse than our previous keeper, Wes Foderingham.
Foderingham himself has underperformed his Expected Goals on Target (post-shot xG) by 1.5 this season – a short-hand way of saying that he’s conceded one or two goals more than an average keeper should have in the 25 games he’s played. Not good, but not disastrous either. For context, this puts Foderingham right around the Arsenal pair of Aaron Ramsdale and David Raya.
Grbic is underperforming the same metric by an astonishing 8.2 goals. With just eight starts so far, his presence in the team is essentially costing United a goal every single game. Needless to say, this is by far the worst mark in the league.
Worse, Grbic looks shot of confidence – fumbling routine takes and miskicking clearances. It’s hard to know what to do with him – double-down on the commitment that he’s our first-choice for next year and hope he settles in as a viable keeper, or concede that he’s a disaster and try and replace him as soon as possible.
He’s got five more games this season to turn it around, and plenty of our fans will be watching on closely - albeit a few looking through their fingers.
Ben Meakin can be found at BladesPod
