The Case For The Defence

Firstly, when we got Willy at the start of the 2004-05 season, a lot of people were saying 'Willy who?' and 'He'll never be as good as Rog' but from the start of that campaign he became an almost overnight success and his relationship with 'Big Kev' Austin became legendary and the subject of much singing.

How many times during that first season were we to become grateful for a magnificent save from Willy. I would go as far as to say that if it wasn't for the man between the sticks we would not have got promoted automatically and would have been left with the play offs and we all know what can happen there.

Moving on to the season just finished, a magnificent start saw us all hoping for another automatic promotion at the turn of the year but that was not to be. It was only in the early months of this year that there started to appear that most feared of beasts - the Willy basher - and their numbers swelled as more and more results went against us.

I will be the first to admit that I was disappointed with the way the results seemed to go against us with countless winning positions converted into draws or even defeats but is it fair to single out one person for blame when there were other contributory factors not least the loss of key players at critical times.

Yes, Willy does not seem to be the commanding force he was the season before but we were playing at a higher level, the first choice defence was frequently disrupted and therefore I believe there were more opportunities against our goal than we would have liked and, the law of averages says that there will be more mistakes made.

With regard to the play off final, yes he may have been at fault for the second Barnsley goal but let's be honest, if it wasn't for their keeper we wouldn't have been 2-1 up at the time. And penalties, the only accusation you can level at Willy is that he guessed wrong 4 times and anyone who's ever gambled will know that feeling only too well.

If everyone in the team was perfect we would have finished last season with 138 points, a goal difference in the hundreds and a host of Premiership sides beating down the gates of the Liberty to cream off our best. The fact is nobody's perfect it's just that the keeper, as the last line of defence, always seems to get it in the neck.

You've also got to ask why MK Dons were prepared to pay £100K for him if, as people are saying, he is rubbish.

So that's my opinion and you are free to disagree but I would say that you should get off Willy's back and support him, and the rest of the team, whether he starts next season as number one or two.