Ben Foster – have we ‘let one slip through our gloves’?

After a string of impressive performances for Birmingham City, including Saturday’s man of the match showing against Champions Chelsea, I am wondering to think if we were right to let Ben Foster leave in the summer. United sold the talented English keeper for an initial fee of £4million which could rise to a sum of £6million. Is that a good enough price for a goalkeeper we knew had a big future ahead of him?

There has been much speculation regarding Edwin Van Der Sar’s successor. Anders Lindegaard, a 26 year old Danish keeper is on the verge of signing a £3.5million deal at the club. There have been doubts over his ability, with the great Peter Schmeichel insisting he is not ready for the Premier League:

“You can look at talent, you can look at young, good players. You don’t want that. You want someone who can go in straight away and give performances in 80 per cent of the games the No 1 keeper will play for Manchester United.”

After hearing the rumours around Lindegaard, I’m a little sceptical myself. I think it would have been better to keep Foster at United for a few more years. The 27 year old, did make some key mistakes in a Manchester United shirt. However, I have to say he has looked like a new man in the Midlands. We all know of his obvious talent and recently he has shown just why he was and still is rated as one of the top English goalkeepers. If he had been given a few more years at Man United, surely his price would have only increased and he could only have improved as we are all seeing him do now in Alex McLeish’s side.

That being said, Foster has moved on and hopefully so will we. Let’s hope Anders Lindegaard proves to be an instant hit and IS able fill the ‘huge gloves’ of Edwin Van Der Sar.