Vote for your Brighton Team of the Decade: Goalkeeper

In case you hadn’t heard or realised, the 2010’s are coming to an end. It’s been quite the decade for Brighton and Hove Albion with the Amex Stadium opening, two promotions and the realisation of the dream of Premier League football.

All of that success has been delivered by some excellent footballers. To recognise that fact, we’re putting together a Brighton Team of the Decade made up players selected by your votes. They’ll be lining up in the 4-4-2 of Chris Hughton’s Championship promotion season and the full team will be revealed before the clock strikes midnight to reign in the 2020’s.

Goalkeeper

The first poll for our Brighton Team of the Decade is for the goalkeeper’s slot. Compared to the turbulence that saw the Albion rattle through 24 different goalkeepers in the noughties, there has been a fair bit of stability between the posts since 2010.

It’s helped that we’ve had three outstanding number ones in that time, even if one of them was a little too fond of Greggs’ sausage rolls and another was released on a free transfer apparently owing to some ill-advised extracurricular activities.

There’s five men in total on the shortlist. Who is your number one number one?

Casper Ankergren
You might be wondering what this bloke is doing here – and if the answer you’ve come up with is it’s because he single handedly keeps 10 coffee shops in Hove, the Marlboro Tobacco Company and Carlsberg Brewery in business, then you’re half right.

Ankergren also deserves to be on the list by virtue of being Gus Poyet’s number one for the entire 2010-11 season, when Brighton took League One by storm. It often gets forgotten that Ankergren made some crucial interventions that year, even winning the division’s Player of the Month award for September as the Albion climbed to the top of the table – where they would remain for the next eight months.

Peter Brezovan
Another questionable choice for the shortlist, Sexy Pete had two runs as number one in the 2010s. The first came when he replaced Michel Kuipers in February 2010 and lasted until the end of that season. The second was when he took over from Ankergren when Southampton came to the Amex in the first fixture of 2012.

Many of us thought Poyet must have overindulged on the old vino on New Year’s Eve to play Brezovan against a side pushing for promotion to the Premier League. We were duly put in our place as the Albion beat the Saints 3-0. Brezovan went onto keep the number one shirt for the remainder of the campaign.

Other reasons for his inclusion are the fact that he liked to paint in his spare time and in 2015, he released a single in which he sung and played guitar – and yes, of course we have it bookmarked. Here’s Peter Brezovan’s debut single.

Tomasz Kuszczak
When Kuszczak arrived from Manchester United in the summer of 2012, he became the first Champions League winner to sign for the Albion. The Big Pole was an instant upgrade on Ankergren and Brezovan and he played a huge part in the Albion reaching the Championship play off semi finals in the 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons as one of the best goalkeepers in the division.

You can normally judge how good a goalkeeper is by the number of howlers you remember them making. For Kuszczak, that was one glaring mistake in two years when he dropped a routine shot into the back of the net in a 2-2 draw away at Birmingham City in January 2013. It therefore came as something of a surprise when Kuszczak was released by Oscar Garcia in the summer of 2014.

Maty Ryan
It’s easy to forget that Brighton’s current number one actually suffered a dodgy first few games between the posts for the Albion – to the point that many of us wondered if he was cut out for Premier League football. Hughton even responded by signing Tim Krul from Newcastle United on deadline day.

Since then, Ryan has proven himself to be one of the most dependable goalkeepers in the top flight. He was worth a good eight points in the 2017-18 season – we stayed up by seven that year – and in October last year he became the first ever Brighton player to win a Premier League PFA Player of the Month award. He also happens to be a bloody good bloke, which just adds to his popularity.

David Stockdale
Ah, our old mate Dave. When he wasn’t searching for his own name on Twitter and then getting into arguments with us and Adam Virgo, he could be very good indeed. That ridiculous double save from Fernando Forestieri’s penalty against Sheffield Wednesday at the Amex remains one of the best stops we’ve ever seen.

But he was also good for a spectacular howler every now and then. Scoring two own goals in one game was impressive enough, but to then go and top it a couple of weeks later by letting the ball squirm through his legs from 25 yards to cost us the title was even more remarkable.

By-and-large though, Stockdale gave us two years of excellent service. His first season at the club was a disappointment, but once Ben Roberts was appointed as goalkeeper coach, there was no stopping Dave. He was nearly as important to promotion as Lewis Dunk, Anthony Knockaert or Glenn Murray and the way in which he reacted in the aftermath of the Shoreham Air Disaster was first class.

Stockdale wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but on his day he was still a fine goalkeeper.

Please vote for one goalkeeper for our Brighton Team of the Decade