Tom Heaton: gone

[jwarry]

Good luck Tom, you helped us on our journey and it won’t be forgotten

[Smithy]

Is he out of contract? We paid Burnley 8 or 10m for a keeper on a two year deal.... madness. Since Given and until Emi, we've been cursed with goalies. They've either been a waste of money or not up to it.

I think that's harsh on Heaton, he was pretty good for us, and a decent upgrade on the position for us. I think if he hadn't got injured in that curse Burnley game it's FAR less likely we'd have bought Emi, as he was doing perfectly well for us (not Emi's level, but few are). 

His injury forced us to properly look around I think. I also think £8-£10m and a two-year contract for a 33-year-old England keeper joining a team that's just been promoted was quite reasonable.  There was possibly an option for a third year based on various metrics, which have no doubt not been met.

[eamonn]

Can understand Dean/the club finally wanting to land a proven Prem keeper but Burnley saw us coming. Although, a four year deal with the same transfer fee would have meant us having to pay-off the rest of his contract now instead of nothing so I guess it could have been even more expensive.

[Damo70]

We had to do a lot of transfer business in the summer after promotion. We were losing loan players back to their parent clubs, some youngsters needed to be let go and older heads past their best like Alan Hutton had to be let go. In one summer we had to assemble pretty much a whole squad to give us a chance of staying up.

[Martin Carruthers]

Without the benefit of hindsight, bringing him in when we did made perfect sense. Wish him (but not them) well.

[Villa Lew]

Good luck Tom, wish you all the best.

[SoccerHQ]

Keeper we needed at the time and did a solid job for us.

Interested what sort of role he has up there as he's far too good to just be number 3 and effectively be in semi retirement. If he'd stayed he'd have probably played the cup games for us next season.

Perhaps there was break clause in his deal if he wasn't first choice anymore. Obviously Emi is better in all departments but in fairness you could say that comparing him to most keepers in the league which shows how good he is.

[Toronto Villa]

I reckon De Gea is done there so he will compete with Henderson. Unless they keep a hold of De Gea which would be nuts and sell Henderson.

[cdbearsfan]

Good luck to him if he goes. Well good luck in that I hope he does well but that revolting team lose every week, if that's possible. He always gave his all for us and was a good influence on the defence before his unfortunate injury.

I'm happy with Jed as backup and cup goalkeeper. Especially as I feel a cup goalkeeper should always be good at saving penalties, and Steer has already proven himself in a shoot-out.

I'd sell or re-loan Kalinic (you'd forgotten about him, hadn't you?) and bring in an under-21 goalkeeper, or promote one from the youths if they think there's one good enough, so we free up two spaces in our 25 man squad.

[SoccerHQ]

I reckon De Gea is done there so he will compete with Henderson. Unless they keep a hold of De Gea which would be nuts and sell Henderson.

They need someone to take De Gea's 350k wages, likes of Real Madrid wouldn't be interested any longer especially not after just diving out of the way of most of the penalties last night.

He's like the keeper version of Fernando Torres last few years.

[SoccerHQ]

Kalinic is actually in Croatia squad so possible he might be playing v England (think he's their number 2).

I'd love to know the thought process that went into that signing as DS seemed to have had enough of him after about 5 games, subbed v West Brom at half time and hasn't played for us since.

Got visions of Suso finding a note about him after the failed work permit a few seasons before and deciding just to sign him for the laugh.

[OCD]

Wasn't he a signing that Bruce had done before Smith got here and we were already committed so had to complete the deal?

[chrisw1]

Heaton is an excellent keeper.  Obviously happy to have Emi now but if it wasn't for the injury would have been more than hasppy with Tom for the next few seasons.  Such bad luck and will always be 'what could have been'

[PaulWinch again]

Best of luck.

[Percy McCarthy]

Wasn't he a signing that Bruce had done before Smith got here and we were already committed so had to complete the deal?

I’m not convinced  he’d have agreed to a move to the Championship. He’s a fucking good goalie.