holdsteady
Well-known member
His first appearance for us was the 2-0 EFL Trophy win against Swindon. Slocombe was first choice until the 1-5 win against Stevenage where he was responsible for their goal. Buchel was then the benefiary of that by having a couple of cup games in a row, impressed enough to stay in goal and played until we next lost a game to Wycombe (a run of 10 matches or so). MApp then played Slocombe as first choice until he was again at fault for a goal in a home draw against Mansfield in early February after which Buchel kept net for the rest of the season.
Neither were spectacular but neither awful either. I think it's easy to view the GK position that season as a bit of a weak link when you consider the stellar talent playing in that team some of which went on to play in the PL, Europe, internationally and in the top flights across Europe - Roofe, Lundstram, Kenny, Baldock and O'Dowda. Wright, Mullins, Dunkley, Maguire, Ryan Taylor, Hylton and Skarz were all so solid. Most would have been in the shadow of those.
We would have had to have gained 13 more points to match Northampton and I don't think you can attribute that many dropped points to Slocombe and Buchel specifically. If we had better home form (defeats to Barnet, Luton and Accrington come to mind), I reckon we may have got a bit closer. Our away form was outrageous - we only lost two matches away and had six matches where we scored more than four on travels across all comps.
Wilder's Northampton weren't anywhere near as interesting as we were but they were metronomically consistent. They didn't lose a match after 19th December including winning 10 in a row.
2015–16 Northampton Town F.C. season - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Really freaky form. They also had Ryan Clarke, Alfie Potter, Chris Hackett and Danny Rose all play for them at some point that season. Ricky Holmes scored 11 goals and they had Dominic Calvert-Lewin in for the first half of it.
Yeah I was probably exaggerating there, we were not a machine type side, the cup games took a lot out of us as well, but as I said further down with a better goalie we probably don't go into the last game needing anything. But where is the fun in that, you wouldn't swap our season with Northampton's, especially with what has followed it for us and them, both our success as a club and what the players we had went on to do, only really the manager in Wilder from that side pushed on (ignoring Calvert Lewin) whereas we had players go onto prem clubs, championship and even into Europe.
