Cooper has the makings of a decent shot stopper at least but his decision making might be suspect (Sat for example) and he’s not very big for a keeper. I like to see tall keepers who can dominate their six yard box but they need more than that of course.
You've got to remember he was making his home debut so probably a little nervous.His distribution is miles better than Gauci.
Oh I know that and I’m not criticising him. Brad Collins was always chasing off his line - it’s just a case of judging if right and anyone can make that kind of mistake
I don't think it was that bad of a decision Saturday. The fault lay with Earl you can't let a forward be goal side of you in there own half total madness. Coopers starting postion made him think he could get there he didn't. He could have retreated but Earl was never catching him it was a one on one any decent forward scoring 90% of the time.
Re Gauci he's under contract till 2028. Cooper May 31st 2026 apparently. It's about time we managed to convince a loan signing to stay and sign for us on a permanent. I'm happy with what I've seen of him up to now. And previous reports suggest a growing talent. The way we've started will also make us more attractive for other players to come. Especially if we can keep it up till the end of the window.
cooper signed a new 3yr deal at QPR before going out on loan. https://www.qpr.co.uk/news/2025/june/23/murphy-cooper/
That's him and Gauci out of the window then. I bet Isted especially (bench warming at Burton) , and possibly Roberts if he was offered a contract, Regret not signing for us looking at their latest adventures. Short term gain. Long term loss, possibly.
Bit more to the story re Isted. club tried to low ball the offer to him following his loan and being out of contract - MK dons actually offered him a better deal than ours and they had been relegated. Ironically the Charlton GK coach had been encouraging the Charlton manager at the time to watch Isted and following the play off final he had messaged him to say that was the player that he had been telling him about but they thought a deal was already in place with us so we missed out and he didn’t need to move home or anything at that point. Then Nathan Jones took over at charlton who had already let Isted go at Luton so the writing was on the wall once he got appointed manager after the previous one who signed him moved on.
Rumour at the time also. But not sure if True. He would have stayed if Duff did. He went the day after Duff left. Coincidence?.
I believe the only loan player we had that season who the club wanted to sign again was Bobby Thomas. The club wanted Brad Collins as first choice keeper again but he had other ideas and a better side was interested. Isted was only a stop gap who gathered some form but he had other things lined up knowing full well he wouldn’t be at Luton that summer and we had no plan for him. By the time we knew what was happening with Collins, the ship had sailed regarding Isted. The whole goalkeeping situation that summer was messed about. We tried to get a keeper in from America who had previously been at Real Salt Lake and Chicago Fire but fell through. The club have had stinkers with the keeper situation. Tried for Luke Southwood two out of three summers and couldn’t get that deal over the line. He ended up turning us down to go be second choice at Bolton.
We did hold talks about the permanent signing of isted though. In Barnsleys words. There were too many variables. In the way.