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Matt Turner admits he has “real fight” to retain No. 1 job at Nottingham Forest

Matt Turner has had his share of good moments at Nottingham Forest this season. He’s also had some tough moments as well. Despite an up-and-down campaign so far, the veteran shot-stopper knows it’s up to him to retain the No. 1 job.

Turner watched from the sidelines on Sunday as Nottingham Forest drew AFC Bournemouth 1-1 at the Vitality Stadium. It marked the eighth time this season that the 29-year-old was on the bench for the relegation-threatened squad.

Nuno Espirito Santo’s squad have failed to win any of their last four matches across all competitions, including three in league action. Turner’s errors haven’t helped at times this season, but the U.S. men’s national team No. 1 is confident he can play a role in Nottingham Forest turning its season around.

“Everything that could possibly have gone wrong in certain moments has gone completely wrong,” he said in an interview with ESPN. “Sometimes as goalkeepers you might get away with one or two things, and it feels like this season I’ve gotten away with zero. It’s tough to take.

“Now I’ve got a real fight on my hands for the position,” Turner added. “I’m no stranger to being in these types of scenarios. I’ve been overlooked and doubted many times in my life and my career, and I wouldn’t have gotten to this point if I wasn’t confident in myself. I can be somebody that has a real impact on this football club.”

Newly-acquired Matz Sels and Greek international Odysseas Vlachodimos will compete with Turner for the starting job as the Premier League campaign pushes forward.

Comments

  1. Sels needs to do his best Courtouis or Navas impersonation right off the bat.

    On paper he does not seem head and shoulders above the other two and I’m pretty sure Nuno wants a fire and forget solution.

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  2. Unfortunately, barring injury, I think he’s done at NF. Due to a lack of options available, Turner had way more opportunity to redeem himself than normally happens in the PL. Unfortunately, he showed little indication he has the quality and consistency needed at that level. He not only looked wide eyed and shaky, he got burned by silly mistakes in almost every match. Painful to watch. I hope he finds a good home and bounces back, but certainly won’t be at that level anytime soon.

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  3. Turner is most likely done as the #1 keeper for Nottingham for the rest of this season. As someone mentions in this thread, Sels was not registered in time for the FA Cup, so he cannot play tomorrow ( same goes for Gio ), which means Turner may get to play. The only chance Turner has of playing in EPL games and getting his spot back, is if Sels gets injured. Otherwise, Turner’s time as the #1 at NFFC is likely over, and same goes for his time as a #1 in the EPL.

    After this season, he may be able to catch on with a team in the EPL as a #2, but with respect to the EPL, and for the foreseeable future, unfortunately, that is the best case scenario for Turner.

    So, given Turner’s current challenges, it has to be said, the #1 keeper spot for the USMNT is wide open.

    At this time, Slonina is not ready to be that guy. Plus, he is more likely to be the #1 at the Olympics this summer, which is more in line with where he should be playing this calendar year.

    Unless someone else emerges, both Steffen and Horvath have a big opportunity in front of them, and probably more so Steffen.

    For Horvath to ascend to the #1 GK for the USMNT, will need to get playing time at Cardiff City, and when he does, he will need to show well. Hopefully, he gets an opportunity soon.

    Steffen has the biggest opportunity, so it will be interesting to see how he starts off the MLS season and how his knee is, as it seems to be a chronic issue that he will have going forward. Wouldn’t it be ironic if Steffen, playing in MLS, displaces Turner as the #1, who is in Europe? Turnabout is fair play, anyone??? 🙂

    Lastly, it has to be asked, if Steffen is playing well and is called up, would he accept the opportunity? Has he spoken with Berhalter since being left off the 2022 WC roster? Things that make you go hmmm…

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  4. in league play, notts forest as a whole, 1.78 GAA. with matt turner in the net, averages 1.64 GAA. exactly. thanks.

    bears reminding one reason for forest’s sheer panic is they need to not just win games but have a cushion to the drop zone where if they get docked points they don’t go down for that. even though IMO end-season points deductions are often calculated for precisely that purpose.

    tells me what i need to know when fanboys upset forest isn’t winning UCL and turner pitching 36 shutouts are proposing gaga instead, who has a GAA of roughly 2 in belgium for his cellar dweller.

    i’d respect the analyses more if they were based on that lousy TnT game and not the career roller coaster. career roller coaster often enough seems to result in us back in the same spot 2 years from now after every player moves 1 space leftward on the career gameboard. we aren’t forest, we don’t need to act on relegation flail principles.

    i do think we could benefit from legit position competition but under GB what typically happens instead is we annoint someone else #1 at turner’s expense for half a year. the normal way to go about this is, introduce 1-2 more selected keepers into first choice minutes, rotate a year or so, and let it be decided on the field and not by career micromanagement or off-field analytics.

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    • i mean, someone mentions keller and friedel below. the US historically would not make a decision about that until the end of the cycle. they would trust that perhaps more than one person could be put on the field without the apocalypse happening and then make a decision at the end based on actual performances. the US right now isn’t willing to either trust the pool or risk some performance variety to sort out who really does their job right. we pick someone on paper we like. we go with it. we are then at such points in the process struck by the nagging question of did i make a mistake. if turner rotated with, say, frei, celentano, and steffen, you’d have less of a career-driven nag. “i play them all for the Nats and based on that i trust __________.” you don’t have to check league box scores every week to confirm it.

      fwiw whatever analytics we are looking at are crazed because gaga, celentano, and horvath are all lousy on paper.

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  5. It’s official: the USMNT has a GK crisis. No Friedel, Keller, or Howard to bail us out when we are overmatched. I guess it’s Gaga time since he’s the only one getting first team minutes.

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  6. I expect Turner to be on the bench for the rest of the year. He will go into Copa America with 5 months of inactivity (at least as far as in-game minutes with Forest).

    I hope I am wrong, but Nuno and Forest desperately scrambled to sign a GK at the deadline, and just a few days later he (Sels) started his first game. Not a good sign for Turner.

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      • “us going into Copa with a GK with no first team minutes”

        Not likely to happen.

        Forest has itself 3 #1 keepers. It’s not like they brought Keylor Navas back. Matt should have his chances to get back in.

        MLS starts soon so if Matt hasn’t beaten the other two out before Copa America, Zach Steffen and the other MLS candidates should be ready to go. Slonina may be playing but Eupen are a pretty lame team.

        If Zach is back to being bright eyed and bushy tailed no way Slonina should be picked over him based on his Eupen resume.

      • i am sure GB would love to find steffen’s way back in, he likes trying to have him build from the back, even if all i have ever seen is us shipping goals that way. steffen however declined to cooperate end of last cycle on either NT performance or career situation. i guess people have forgotten costa rica away, etc. kind of like ES away and horvath. this sort of NT performance amnesia seems to be standard operating procedure with the club form fanboys.

        to me steffen has not looked like the same player since he went abroad and hurt his knee. i know on pedigree and the old pecking order he was groomed to be The Guy, but so was guzan and we know how that went. turner outplayed him by a country mile and it was over. to me unless something is wrong with turner, who is playing where and how much shouldn’t change that analysis — so long as turner 90% of the time looks like turner. we should care if that stops happening for the NT, less so about the career stuff. and to be fair, some guys the career rust affects the NT performance (ol bobby wood couldn’t kick a NT ball straight when benched in club). but others not so much (reyna, weah). in which case, to me, just watch how he plays.

        sorry but the fanboy wish list seems on another “pedigree” planet from actual performance. i’d like to see celentano, frei, and mccarthy get a look.

      • IV,

        Every keeper you and I mentioned has some kind of flaw. Some are more flawed than others.

        Whoever serves as the keeper for Nations League and then Copa America, he will be the best of a mediocre bunch. Actually, the USMNT keeper pool suffers mostly because it keeps getting compared with our previous wealth of top class keepers.

        There is a USMNT narrative that in order for the USMNT to advance further than we are used to in Copa or the World Cup, they need the equivalent of Keller/Friedel/Howard back.

        If the USMNT is overall a better team than it has been in the past then it is possible they can live without a Superman keeper. No one would turn down a Superman if he shows up but a solid, fundamentally sound keeper, who is capable of playing over his head for a few games, should do for now. Ethan Horvath on occasion has shown that kind of ability and some of these other MLS keepers may be able to do it as well. After all France won the World Cup with Hugo Loris.

        I expect Matt to recover enough of his form to retain his #1 USMNT job but even if Matt doesn’t, Gregg and his guys should be able to cobble something together out of whatever is left over.

      • horvath is behind turner at forest. if we are playing the career form game i don’t see how that favors horvath. to me if we’re going to use a heuristic to decide who starts then everyone gets the same tool reading. if turner gets stick for dropping to bench then horvath gets worse stick for being his understudy. i don’t get how career situation is supposed to be dire for one but the other’s opportunity, when he’s not passed him in line at the same team. other than decontextualized fanboy panic. oh, no, turner may get demoted, who else is there?

        personally i think it would be justifiable to reopen GK competition but rotate a set including turner. based on that lousy TnT game.

        i personally would like to see some fresh faces in net sometimes as the debate seems stuck about 5 years ago. i know we thought it was going to be a particular group. i know they all went off to europe and thus look good on a resume.

        i grant no one is perfect but we should be looking at whether we can do better.

      • The Imperative Voice,

        “horvath is behind turner at forest.”

        No he’s not. Ethan, relative to Matt, was/is nowhere.

        “if we are playing the career form game i don’t see how that favors horvath. to me if we’re going to use a heuristic to decide who starts then everyone gets the same tool reading.”

        “if we”?? You’re playing with yourself

        “ if turner gets stick for dropping to bench then horvath gets worse stick for being his understudy. i don’t get how career situation is supposed to be dire for one but the other’s opportunity, when he’s not passed him in line at the same team. other than decontextualized fanboy panic. oh, no, turner may get demoted, who else is there?”

        Understudy? Matt and Ethan had/have no effect on each other. Ethan was placed in limbo, in the outer darkness, for this first half of the season and Forest clearly were not going to change that in the second half. Ethan is now in Cardiff.

        “personally i think it would be justifiable to reopen GK competition but rotate a set including turner. based on that lousy TnT game.”

        Something being justifiable does not mean it is going to happen.

        “Reopening the competition” sounds grand and implies that Matt has some serious competition for his USMNT place. Until Zack gets himself back in his pomp (assuming he does), there is no serious competition to Matt.

        “ i personally would like to see some fresh faces in net sometimes as the debate seems stuck about 5 years ago.”

        Yes that would be nice. It would give everyone the illusion that something worthwhile was actually being done. Like that worldwide search that spared no expense and gave us Gregg Berhalter. They could call it the Imperative Keeper search.

        What debate? The goalkeeper pool is not as consistent as y’all want it to be. So whoever is minding the nets will not be pleasing to people like you all.

        “i know we thought it was going to be a particular group. i know they all went off to europe and thus look good on a resume. i grant no one is perfect but we should be looking at whether we can do better.”

        Gregg hired a goalkeeper coach/specialist and you pissed all over that. “We” should not be doing anything. Gregg on the other hand may want to consider beating the bushes a little harder. I never thought it was going to be “a particular group”.

        All the candidates I see, Matt included, are pretty mediocre. Matt is far and away our #1 because he seems to be able to raise his game when vital in a way that almost no one else, save for Ethan on occasion, can do.
        Tim Howard was like that for most of his USMNT career before the Belgium game.
        Timmy “soft goal” Howard sucked in the 2010 World Cup so he proved that the USMNT can be okay w/o Friedel/ Keller level goalkeeper play. Matt should be able to vaguely emulate Timmy. And the USMNT is supposed to be superior in every other category so they should be okay.
        Frankly, the USMNT is incapable of developing a new Keller so they are just going to have to keep hoping the clubs come up with a new Kasey.
        Until then, we should be fine.
        We’re better off than El Tri who are still having to play my favorite Mexican keeper Memo. What is he now, 50?

      • The Imperative Voice,

        “horvath is behind turner at forest.”

        No he’s not. Ethan, relative to Matt, was/is nowhere.

        “if we are playing the career form game i don’t see how that favors horvath. to me if we’re going to use a heuristic to decide who starts then everyone gets the same tool reading.”

        You’re playing with yourself

        “ if turner gets stick for dropping to bench then horvath gets worse stick for being his understudy. i don’t get how career situation is supposed to be dire for one but the other’s opportunity, when he’s not passed him in line at the same team. other than decontextualized fanboy panic. oh, no, turner may get demoted, who else is there?”

        Mat and Ethan had/have no effect on each other. Ethan was placed in limbo for this first half of the season and Forest clearly were not going to change that in the second half. Ethan is now in Cardiff.

        “personally i think it would be justifiable to reopen GK competition but rotate a set including turner. based on that lousy TnT game.”

        Something being justifiable does not mean it is going to happen.

        “Reopening the competition” sounds grand and implies that Matt has some serious competition. Until Zack gets himself back in his pomp (assuming he does), there is no serious competition to Matt. He doesn’t really have any.

        “ i personally would like to see some fresh faces in net sometimes as the debate seems stuck about 5 years ago.”

        Yes that would be nice. It would give everyone the illusion that something worthwhile was actually being done. Like that worldwide search that spared no expense and gave us Gregg Berhalter. They could call it the Imperative Keeper search.

        What debate? The goalkeeper pool is not as consistent as y’all want it to be. So whoever is minding the nets will not be pleasing to people like you all Neither Matt nor any of the other alleged suspects ( your boy Josh Cohen for example) could possibly live up to the myth and legend of the Super American keeper, so you all are going to be whining, moaning and crying , no matter what.

        “i know we thought it was going to be a particular group. i know they all went off to europe and thus look good on a resume. i grant no one is perfect but we should be looking at whether we can do better.”

        Gregg hired a goalkeeper coach/specialist and you pissed all over that. “We” should not be doing anything. Gregg on the other hand may want to consider beating the bushes a little harder. I never thought it was going to be “a particular group”.

        All the candidates I see, Matt included, are pretty mediocre. Matt is far and away the #1 because he seems to be able to raise his game when vital in a way that almost no one else, save for Ethan on occasion, can do.

        Tim Howard was like that for most of his USMNT career before the Belgium game. Timmy “soft goal” Howard sucked in the 2010 World Cup so he proved that the USMNT can be okay w/o Friedel/ Keller level goalkeeper play. Matt should be able to vaguely emulate Timmy. And the USMNT is supposed to be superior in every other category so they should be okay.

        Frankly, the USMNT is incapable of developing a new Keller so they are just going to have to keep hoping the clubs come up with a new Kasey.
        Until then, we should be fine.

        We’re better off than El Tri who are still having to play my favorite Mexican keeper Memo. What is he now, 50?

    • Well Sels, can’t play the FA cup replay so Turner should get at least one more chance and if he can’t help them beat a bottom half Championship side he probably doesn’t deserve many more minutes.

      Reply

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