Cottagers Confidential talk David Button
David Button became Brighton and Hove Albion’s second goalkeeper signing of the summer, following his move from Fulham for a fee rumoured to be in the region of £4m.
The capture of Jason Steele from Sunderland in June left Albion fans distinctly underwhelmed, with Sunderland fan site The Roker Report telling us he had a claim to being the Black Cats worse ever goalkeeper.
Is Button likely to be any better? We’d bloody hope so, especially as either him or Steele will be number one throughout January when Maty Ryan is away at the Asian Cup.
We spoke to Fulham blog Cottagers Confidential for their view on the Albion’s latest recruit.
David Button – what can Brighton fans expect from him?
Button remains a good shot stopper with poor distribution. If you are willing to let him kick the ball long and don’t play the ball back to him under pressure, he can do a fine job.
He started last season as your number one but lost his place halfway through the season. What happened?
The system that Fulham play depended a lot on playing the ball back to the keeper and and then him playing it out from the back. Button just isn’t good at it. He very often made poor decisions which led to goals. There were plenty of shouts for him to just boot it up field, but Fulham’s entire game plan depended on the keeper being able to play and he just couldn’t do it.
We’ve read that he wasn’t particularly popular among the Craven Cottage faithful. Why was that?
Once you make a few high profile mistakes, it’s hard to get the fans off your back. Combine that with the fact that his competition for the shirt was Marcus Bettinelli, a fairly popular and young academy product and Button never really had a chance.
Button is the second goalkeeper we’ve signed from you in the last few seasons, following on from David Stockdale. How do the two compare?
I’d rate Stockdale slightly higher, but they are a similar style of classic keeper. If Fulham hadn’t given up on Stockdale, we’d probably never have signed Button in the first place.
Do you think the rumoured fee of around £4m for Button is fair?
I think that fee is high. But he’s English and this is the Premier League and I think pretty much all the fees are too high when it comes to homegrown players.
Maty Ryan will miss the whole of January playing for Australia in the Asian Cup, which means that Button could face up to seven games as our number one. How do you think he’ll fare in the Premier League?
I wouldn’t expect anything great from him, but if you’re willing to let him play the ball long and not ask him to do things he can’t with it, you can probably muddle through.
Finally, away from Button – what did Fulham fans make of Oliver Norwood’s performances last season and what are the chances of you taking him off our hands again?
Norwood is a tough call. He was a great depth piece in the Championship for us. A guy who could plug in and not fall off too much from our starting midfielders. Fulham’s transfer plan for the coming season though seems to be to strengthen the midfield and use some of our starters from last year as the depth pieces. That would push Norwood even further down the pecking order and I’m not sure he’d be happy with that to be honest.
You can check out Cottagers Confidential online and follow them on Twitter. They also wrote an article looking at David Button’s contribution to Fulham’s promotion campaign, which you can read here.
