The Roker Report talk Jason Steele
More than a few eyebrows have been raised at Brighton and Hove Albion signing Jason Steele from Sunderland.
What could a Premier League side want with a bloke who wasn’t even first choice at a club relegated into League One? Over on Twitter, one Black Cat’s fan pondered whether the world had gone mad in the couple of hours he’d popped to Newcastle, another said anyone who paid Steele in anything other than Wham Bars and Space Raiders was taking the piss and there was even a comparison to selling a blind kid a dead budgie.
There are some obvious reasons behind the Albion’s thinking – we need a (hopefully) third choice goalkeeper and we also need to boost our home grown players having lost Steve Sidwell, Liam Rosenior, Rohan Ince and Jamie Murphy this summer.
But what if Steele actually has to play at some point this season? We spoke to one of our favourite opposition websites, the brilliant Roker Report to get a proper Sunderland view of Brighton’s new goalkeeper.
What were your first thoughts when you heard that Brighton were interested in Jason Steele?
Utter disbelief. I couldn’t believe we’d found a club for him, never mind one playing Premier League football. Alright, he’ll be third choice and we gave him away in order to facilitate the deal, but still… some Sunderland fans believe Steele is the worst goalkeeper we’ve ever paid money for, and it’d be hard to argue with that.
What can Albion fans expect from Steele?
Terrible, nervous goalkeeping from a man that appears to have completely forgotten what it is he’s supposed to be doing. See his complete and utter disaster away at Queens Park Rangers for an example of what I’m talking about – he’s absolutely turgid.
Can you give us a brief run down of how his 2017-18 season at the Stadium of Light went? Any particular highlights?
As I said before, the red card he received for a handball outside of the box at QPR was his crowning moment, but there were so many others. His hand in conceding five goals away at Ipswich, having the worst debut of any goalkeeper ever in our friendly with Celtic and falling to bits having been chucked in for a cup game with his old club Middlesbrough are just three off the top of my head.
How much of his poor form do you think you could put down to the fact he was playing in a struggling team?
A lot of it, in fairness. At some point in his younger days he was a highly-tipped keeper, and somewhere along the way he’s lost his touch. Why, I’ve got no idea. The team in front of him were admittedly terrible but he and his other goalkeeping counterparts at Sunderland did absolutely nothing to make things better. With a decent stopper we’d have stayed up – I have no doubts about saying that.
If we said to you Maty Ryan is going to miss the whole of January playing for Australia in the Asian Cup and unless we sign another goalkeeper, Steele could start as many as seven games for us, what would you say?
I’d say “hahahahahaha, unlucky!” and not much else.
Our goalkeeper coach Ben Roberts has something of a reputation for getting the best out of goalkeepers who’ve previously had question marks over them. What would he need to work on with Steele?
Absolutely everything. If the man can work miracles with Steele he deserves the freedom of the city. Being serious for a second, you might get a tune from Steele if you can build up his confidence but I just don’t see how that is possible.
While we’re here, we’ve been heavily linked with Paddy McNair throughout the summer. Would he be a good signing for the Albion?
He’d be a very shrewd signing. Paddy was our best player towards the end of the season and if he stays fit I have no doubts that he’ll be a steady Premier League player. He’s quick, athletic and scores goals. He’s definitely worth a gamble at £6m – but it appears that you guys value him at slightly less than that.
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