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Fraser Forster To Fight For Place

Saints CEO Martin Semmens has declared Fraser Forster a "full part of our squad" and stated he will be given an opportunity to win his spot back in the Saints side, a statement that suggests that one of the other keepers may be heading out of the door.

Forster has played just once for the club since Boxing Day 2017 — a 3-0 defeat at West Ham in May last year, although not covering himself in glory on that day he was no better or worse than Gunn or McCarthy at the time, but if he thought that might signal a comeback he soon found himself out on loan at Celtic the following season.

His great form in Scotland seemed to suggest he would return to Glasgow for the coming season, but with Celtic unable to afford to either buy him or pay a reasonable part of his wages, he is now back at St Mary's and could be given another chance.

"There's never been any issue with Fraser from a relationship point of view," Semmens told BBC Radio Solent.

"He's always trained brilliantly and is a fantastic guy. Ralph (Hasenhuttl) and him have never really had any issues and they've not had a lot of time together.

"He's obviously always been our player and one that we watched carefully."

He added: "Fraser made an active decision to come back. He didn't want to stay at Celtic anymore, he wanted to come back and play for us so we'll give him that opportunity.

"Fraser has been a full part of the squad since he came back. He couldn't be during the games in July because he wasn't allowed to be part of that squad but now he's a full part of it.

"He's training and he's doing really well, so we'll see how that develops but Fraser is a full part of our squad going forward."

With Forster seemingly back in the squad it seems that unless Saints find a buyer who can afford his wages then he might well be here for the coming season, if that is the case then either Angus Gunn or Alex McCarthy may well be elsewhere either on loan or permanently.

Neither was totally convincing during the season, Mc Carthy played the bulk of the games but seemed always prone to an error, sometimes they cost us goals and sometimes he got away with is such as the offside goal at Bournemouth.

I would think that it would be Gunn that would move on possibly on loan to give him experience.

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