With Nick Pope’s injury against Manchester United set to mean a long spell out for the English international (4 to 5 months), the media have wasted no time in spouting rumours about a potential successor. But what is realistic for Eddie and Dan Ashworth to achieve?

Well first things first let’s look at the media’s supposed favourite target; David De Gea. The former Spanish international has been a free agent since leaving Manchester United in the summer after 12 seasons and would simply mean a short-term option until after Pope’s surgery and recovery process was complete. However, being a “recognisable” name and being a former world-class goalkeeper would mean De Gea is likely to demand exponentially high wages, something that whilst we can afford, we don’t necessarily want to be giving it out to a player joining for 6 months tops, and in my opinion other options represent much better value for money.

Another option we seem set to explore is that of Valencia and Georgia keeper Giorgi Mamardashvili. The 23-year-old shot stopper joined the Spanish outfit in 2021 and has made 78 appearances for the club, keeping 23 clean sheets and conceding 91 goals, which on paper looks like a great record. Mama, as he is known in Spain, has a goalkeeping style that relies on his lightning-fast reaction times to often perform reflex saves. Whilst many taller goalkeepers (which Mama is) struggle to reach the lower down shots Giorgi is accustomed to setting himself early before trying to save the ball down in the lower reaches. I think this is a positive option, especially considering Pope isn’t necessarily getting any younger at 31-years-old.

The third and penultimate option I want to touch on is that of England international Aaron Ramsdale. Ramsdale, who recently lost his place at Arsenal to on-loan Brentford keeper David Raya, is said to be interested in a move to Tyneside. Ramsdale, who made 38 appearances last season, has recently been quoted as saying he “can’t concentrate” for a full 90 minutes and this does worry me a bit, however he’s also said he enjoys joining in with the fans and all of us Toon supporters would get behind that. Ramsdale is a talented keeper of course and does have decent distribution to go along with his shot stopping; but for me he is the third best option on this list behind Mamardashvili and my final option…

Stick with what we have! Personally, for me this panic is unnecessary; Martin Dubravka is a fantastic goalkeeping option. It was only two years ago Dubravka was one of our most influential players and now some fans are treating him like he’s barely a Premier League goalkeeper. When we bought Pope, many fans (myself included) felt the purchase unnecessary with Dubravka obviously being in the fold and still even now a year and a half later I still feel the same. Don’t take that statement the wrong way, I am glad we signed Pope but some fans just feel like Dubravka isn’t the same keeper he was two years ago which is just wrong in my opinion. For instance, on TikTok today I had a disagreement with a fellow fan about De Gea because like I said it doesn’t represent good value for money, (especially with Martin at the club already) and I was told Dubravka isn’t good enough for us which I as outlined strongly disagree with.

All in all, I’d say the options in order are: play Dubravka, Mamardashvili, Ramsdale and as an absolute last resort the very high wages of David de Gea. What are your thoughts and order?