BPF

Definitely aspects of his game that he needs to improve, but same for any young player and to be expected. Please with his performances so far.

Compared to the 2 keepers last season, he's a massive improvement.

He does the basics well - claiming crosses, shot stopping, which the 2 failed to last year. And you're right his distribution is quality.

His positioning needs a lot of work - 2 goals against Birmingham, freekicks against Derby and Wigan. The only mistake that wasn't a positioning one was maybe the goal against Swansea when he could have got a stronger hand on it.

He's 21 though, got a lot of time to improve. Just hope it doesn't cost us this season.

thought the wall was awful yesterday

his communication must be decent because you dont have such a solid defence without a decent GK

the gauntlet was laid down to him

we bought blackman in and said prove you deserve to be our number 1

will take some wiedwald style howlers to dislodge him from this team

For guys of my age it’s hard to move with the times and recognise that distribution is so important for a keeper in the modern game... but it is. And bpf’s is very good. He started as an outfield player in boro’s Academy. Probably would have made a decent centre half. In possession we have 11 players and he’s the one under most pressure as last man so in that front he’s fond great.

Defensively, in open play I think his positioning has been good. He’s made some very good saves, but there’s been a few where you think, ‘could he have got to that?’ In the category of ‘maybe another keeper might have saved it.’
Yesterday's was probably one of those. But in terms of clear errors... just the brum one really, maybe derby. Compare that to gifts we’ve had this season from the keepers of Norwich, stoke and now Wigan.

We’re leaky from set pieces. The goals from corners are defensive organisation, marking and player size... not down to him.

The area for me that needs work is defensive communication/ decision making ... how much is down to him and how much to the centre halves i don’t know. But for the example given yesterday, maybe cooper was right and bpf should have come... but cooper shouldn’t have stepped off the gas until he got a call and saw bpf coming. From bpfs perspective he probably thought cooper had it covered, which actually he did, so you could argue he was right not to come.

He’s young, has things to work on, but the positives outweigh the question mark’s for me.

I said yesterday in the match thread how I personally don't fret about BPF in goal any more. He's come on quite a bit this season compared to last and prior. He must be getting good coaching. And he must be very coachable. Overall, I'm also happy with BPF.

Makes a few errors, been pretty decent for us and kept us in a few games, his distribution has been excellent too.

We'd all rather an experienced safe pair of hands in goal, but he's doing a good job.

Should have saved their free kick yesterday, but it was a decent strike, his positioning was awful for it, gave himself no change.

He doesn't get down quick enough, if he works on that he could be a very good keeper.

For me the best keeper since Green

I wonder how good Banks, Shilton, Clemence and all other top Keepers were when they got their chances!..

We could have one that others want in a year or so, give the kid a chance, I'll bet not all keepers started out as good as they ended!..

Nice article. Certainly a few points for development. But am so far very happy with his performance, and think he deserves a lot of credit for how he has progressed at the club...and importantly, continues to progress. Tough gig being a GK. I think he has shown maturity beyond his years.