For the first time in his Wolverhampton Wanderers reign, Gary O’Neil faces a goalkeeping headache.
The Wolves head coach was uncharacteristically curt when that suggestion was put to him after Jose Sa’s impressive display in the 2-1 defeat by Manchester City on Sunday.
But whether or not O’Neil is a fan of the terminology, in the language of football cliches, a headache is precisely what he has.
On one hand, he has a goalkeeper for whom Wolves paid £10million ($12.9m) in the summer, who was earmarked as the club’s long-term No 1 and who has, in a few short weeks at Molineux, neither stamped his mark on the goalkeeping position decisively nor committed the kind of glaring errors that would have played him out of the team were it not for injury.
On the other, he has an established former No 1 who started the season poorly but returned to the side against one of the best teams in the country and produced a performance that reminded everyone why he is a potential match-winner at Premier League level.
Whether it happens in time for this Saturday’s trip to Brighton & Hove Albion or not, O’Neil will soon have both Sam Johnstone and Jose Sa fit and available and will have a choice to make.
Whichever decision he makes will have consequences.
O’Neil’s brief comments in his post-match press conference after the Manchester City game have been interpreted widely as dismissive of Sa’s claims to the No 1 shirt, but such conclusions feel like an overreach.
“No headache,” said O’Neil. “A decision, yes, but not a headache. Jose’s trained really well since Sam came in, he’s been excellent.
“Sam was injured today, but Jose was always ready to put in a really good performance. There’s no headache but we are really clear on where we go next.”
Far from endorsing one goalkeeper over another, O’Neil’s answer felt more like a classic, cliched, manager’s response to any suggestion that choosing between two experienced, top-flight goalkeepers could be considered onerous.
Yet there is no doubt that O’Neil’s decision when Johnstone is available again will require him to consider a host of competing factors.
Should he decide to reward Sa, 31, for an excellent performance against City by keeping him in the side, he would risk demotivating and undermining the confidence of Johnstone, also 31, the man who Wolves clearly view as their No 1 in the longer term.
Should he recall Johnstone (left in top image) at the first opportunity then it would send a clear message to Sa that, whatever he does, he is never going to be more than Johnstone’s understudy at Molineux — a risky piece of psychology should he be needed again this season.
And then there is the wider context of Wolves’ goalkeeping situation to consider.
When Johnstone joined from Crystal Palace in the final days of summer business, there was an expectation that Sa would leave before the transfer deadline — possibly for a fee in excess of the Johnstone deal to leave the club in a net profit on goalkeepers.
Instead, the expected opportunity in Saudi Arabia did not materialise and Sa remained at Molineux.
It is still likely that the Portugal international will depart, whether in January or next summer, so any decision to back him could be perceived as a short-term move.
But with Wolves in desperate need of points to move away from the foot of the table, O’Neil might fairly argue that the short-term is all that matters right now.
And from Johnstone’s point of view, while finding himself back on the bench so soon after joining Wolves with the implicit promise of regular games would be frustrating, he would know that Sa is unlikely to be a long-term barrier.
That ought to ease any concerns that he could find himself in the same situation he recently escaped at Palace, where Dean Henderson took the No 1 spot and seems secure for a while to come.
Yet sticking with Sa after one fine performance would raise questions about the initial decision to hand Johnstone a first-team place immediately after his arrival despite the Portugal man being a relatively dependable figure during his spell with the club.
Why is Sa the right man now when he was wrong less than two months ago? Have concerns among the coaching staff about Sa’s decision-making in possession gone away? Are his weaker performances earlier in the campaign still at the forefront of the mind?
Whichever way O’Neil turns, his decision will come with risks, so perhaps he is best to consider the words of sporting director Matt Hobbs when Johnstone signed.
“I think it’s the same as every other position on the pitch,” Hobbs told the Wolves website. “You don’t have two midfielders when you want to play two, you have four or five, and they scrap it out. I think a squad and a team is in a much better place when there’s real competition for every place.”
So O’Neil would probably be best served simply ignoring the wider picture and making a simple judgement — which of his goalkeepers is most likely to help Wolves win the next game?
(Top photos: Getty Images)
