Steele arrives from Sunderland as Maenpaa turns down new deal
It’s one out, one in for Brighton and Hove Albion when it comes to goalkeepers as Niki Maenpaa confirms his departure from the club in order to seek first team football on the same day Jason Steele arrives from Sunderland.
Maenpaa has spent the past three seasons since signing from Dutch side VVV Venlo as a back up goalkeeper, firstly as second choice to David Stockdale as the Albion battled for promotion to the Premier League and then as third choice in this campaign to Maty Ryan and Tim Krul.
The Finnish international made just one league appearance, keeping a clean sheet in a comfortable 3-0 win over Rotherham United in August 2016. He played a further 10 times in both the EFL and FA Cup’s and has said he wants to stay in England. From the limited amount we’ve seen of him, he’d prove a solid goalkeeper for most teams in the Championship and an excellent professional to boot.
His place will be taken by Steele, who has completed a free transfer move from the Stadium of Light with Sunderland desperate to get the high earning goalkeeper off their wage bill following relegation to League One.
Steele cost the Black Cats £500,000 from Blackburn Rovers last summer as a replacement for Everton-bound Jordan Pickford. He lasted just four games as number one before being dropped in favour of Robbin Ruiter and ended up playing a grand total of 15 league games as Sunderland finished bottom of the Championship.
All of which makes us conclude that Chris Hughton must have a new number two goalkeeper lined up, with Steele be signed to fill Maenpaa’s role as number three. With Maty Ryan set to miss the whole of January when he is representing Australia in the Asian Cup, we could otherwise end up playing seven games of the 2018-19 season with a bloke who has been relegated out of the second tier in consecutive seasons.
The Twitter reaction from Sunderland fans has been particularly golden, with some of our favourite tweets including:
WHO THE FUCK IN THE PREMIER LEAGUE WANTS TO SIGN JASON STEELE?
— Adam🏴 (@AJRSR5) June 19, 2018
WHO THE FUCK IN THE PREMIER LEAGUE WANTS TO SIGN JASON STEELE?
— Adam🏴 (@AJRSR5) June 19, 2018
Brighton signing Jason Steele for actual money and not Wham bars and Space Raiders is absolutely comical. What the hell are they thinking? He's genuinely the worse keeper I've ever seen. #BHAFC #SAFC
— Steven Lorraine (@steven_safc89) June 20, 2018
Brighton paying £1.5m for a goalkeeper who cost us £500k a year ago, who then cost us about a dozen points and then got dropped for the worst goalkeeper I’ve ever seen, is one of the most astounding yet beautiful things I’ve ever seen in football. Good luck Jason Steele
— Raymond the Bastard (@mazza369) June 20, 2018
There are some positives surrounding Steele’s arrival. The first being that he counts towards our quota of home-grown English players that had been diminished through the departures of Steve Sidwell, Liam Rosenior and Rohan Ince this summer.
The second is that we’ve had some excellent Steel’s down the years, namely Eric who was an extremely popular goalkeeper during the Albion’s previous rise to the Premier League and Lee, who crashed his car into a lamp post on the A23 when pissed after the players Christmas party once.
The third is that in Ben Roberts, we probably have one of the best goalkeeping coaches in the country. He managed to get David Stockdale out of the pie shop and turn him into one of the best keepers in the Championship for two seasons and Ryan himself looked like a suspect signing in his first few games after arriving from Valencia.
If anyone can coax the best out of Steele, it will be Roberts.
