Football Opportunity knocks for Wiles-Richards after Haikin leaves
PROPHETIC is probably stretching things a little but certainly two comments made by Nigel Pearson on Sunday appear relevant when discussing the departure of Nikita Haikin and what the immediate future now holds for Bristol City in the goalkeeping department.
The 27-year-old left City on Tuesday, just 55 days after he arrived at Ashton Gate without making an impact on the first-team outside of providing cover from the bench in the event of Max O’Leary potentially suffering an injury or suspension.
Returning to Bodo/Glimt in time for the start of their Eliteserien season on April 10, he in effect spent pre-season training with a Championship club and is now back at a club where he could again be a starter. That may come across as a little cynical but, hey, football isn’t a particularly altruistic industry and also, while he may not have captured your attention during his warm-ups or lone appearance for the Under-21s against Colchester, he served a purpose to a point and it proved a mutually beneficial relationship.
Returning to the situation in January, of their senior goalkeepers, City were in a position where they had one goalkeeper being paid a good Championship salary to sit on the bench who wasn’t going to be offered a new contract, and another not particularly happy with life in the West Country.
Dan Bentley was leaving at the end of the season, that much was clear, so there seemed little point retaining the 29-year-old for the remaining portion of his deal and the move to Wolves on January 25 enabled a saving north of £350,000 and a small transfer fee to also be included in the equation.
Prior to that the club had loaned Stefan Bajic to Valenciennes. with the France Under-21 international not enjoying the smoothest of acclimatisation periods to Bristol given he arrived injured and it took considerably longer for his wrist to heal than first envisaged.
That meant the 21-year-old wasn’t, how he imagined, second choice because Pearson was unable to sanction a move away for O’Leary - as that would have left them short - so had to find his feet in the Under-21 set-up.
By loaning him back to France, it allowed him to receive competitive game time at a high standard, something he wasn’t going to get over the remainder of the 2022-23 season, whether Bentley had stayed or not.
City needed a stop-gap, a bridge goalkeeper, if you like, to cover for the remainder of the season and
Haikin - who had also been linked with Blackburn Rovers - was available and presented a relatively lowcost alternative to Bentley, possessing a decent amount of experience.
As it’s played out, O’Leary hasn’t been injured or suspended and barring a few iffy moments, particularly towards the end of this slab of fixtures, has been worthy of the No 1 spot; as emphasised by the new three-year contract he agreed in February.
Evidently, Haikin hasn’t been overly delighted with being a perennial No 2 so has made it clear he wishes to play or, at least, return to a place where he’s valued to a higher degree than he was at the High Performance Centre.
And for those crying, “he never got his chance”. Clearly, what was being produced on a daily basis up at Failand wasn’t of a standard that moved the needle to the extent whereby Pearson considered him a credible starter over O’Leary. At least not yet, but that’s now been taken out of his hands to a degree and, based on how quickly this deal was concluded, to steal one of the manager’s favourite phrases he’s probably “not bothered”.
On the language Pearson has used regarding his squad, with now not only defence and midfield looking light but also the goalkeeping department, at least in terms of senior experience, his words in the wake of the Swansea City defeat become relevant regarding life after Haikin.
With reference to Omar TaylorClarke’s debut, he said: “He gets opportunities because we our numbers are low at the moment. I
was saying in another interview I wouldn’t swap that because it’s created some opportunities.” He then went on to say, coincidentally while absolving O’Leary of any blame over Swansea’s opener, “I don’t moan about not having too many players available because I actually prefer working with a group of players who actually want to be here.”
That situation appears true of the situation created, or you could argue enabled because it required some agreement from the Robins to terminate his short-term contract, by Haikin’s exit. Ultimately, if he didn’t want to fulfil the role asked of him and, to be fair, there wasn’t a great deal of obligation there other than maybe the promise of a longerterm deal in the future - and preferred to be somewhere else, what was the point in keeping him?
City are not in a relegation battle and, let’s be honest, are not competing for a play-off place as the last two results have illustrated; it’s not an ideal place to be in and undoubtedly Pearson and his squad want to finish the season strongly and, at the very least, exceed both their points haul (55) and league position (17th) from last term. There is room to manoeuvre and experiment here and there is no indication that involves spending a wage of signing a veteran free agent for the last eight games of the season.
As for the concept of “opportunities” the man to step up will almost certainly be Harvey WilesRichards, pictured, who has performed the Jojo Wollocott role for at least the last 18 months - barring a short-term loan to Hereford at the start of this season and to Gloucester City towards the end of the last - whereby he’s been forever third choice on a matchday; travelling with the first-team squad, warming up with O’Leary, Bentley and then Haikin under the guidance of Pat Mountain but without any real route into the 18.
That has now changed and having paid his dues to a certain extent, Wiles-Richards is likely to be the No 2 for the next Championship fixture when the players reconvene after the international break for Reading at Ashton Gate on April 1.
That also then creates a place for Mac Boyd, Josey Casa-Grande or Joe Duncan to shift into the number three spot and there seems a nice sense of succession going on here.
“Why didn’t this just happen in January?”, you ask. It’s fair point but Wiles-Richards was nearing the end of his recovery from a knee injury, plus the status of City’s season was very different and Pearson ideally didn’t want to ride into the final 18 games with O’Leary plus a group of academy goalkeepers.
Should something befall O’Leary now, it wouldn’t be fatal in terms of the outcome of their place in the Championship, irrespective of how Wiles-Richards plays. That could have been very different in February with double figures in terms of game left. It is about managing risk. For the 20-year-old this is a huge moment. He may not see a single Championship minute but his new position of seniority brings extra responsibility to which Pearson and his staff will be monitoring how he reacts.