Weird that Stevens is suddenly Championship standard after 20 games when even last season we signed an OOC keeper in Archer to cover for a month or two, rather than give him a game. The season before that we loaned in and used Mitchell for months on end, even though Robinson spent the whole time mugging him off and screaming about how he wasn’t ‘his goalkeeper’. Either Stevens has gone from not good enough, to good enough for teams in higher divisions inside a year where he didn’t play any football, or he was better than we thought he was and simply never gave him a chance until everybody finally got so angry at Eastwood that there was no option.
Good to see Eastwood and Brown getting most of the credit for his performances, though. We can’t have it not be a coaching master stroke. Robinson has even said in the Mail piece that Stevens’ form really shows the value of competition, and having players genuinely push each other for the shirt. This is good news! I look forward to having two right backs, two left backs, and four centre backs at the start of next season. Because as the man himself says, it’s really important.