Gavin Bazunu's Man City career path will be influenced by Ireland ambitions

Darren Randolph’s drift into the wilderness at West Ham has seen him plummet from one of Stephen Kenny’s mainstays to being culled from the squad entirely. Bazunu will be mindful of that when he decides his next step with Man City

Mon, 04 Oct, 2021 - 23:00

John Fallon

To characterise Ireland’s plunging stock by the number of League One players in the squad is overly simplistic.

Seven in total from the third tier of English football are in the panel for Saturday’s World Cup qualifier in Azerbaijan but they don’t fall into a uniform category.

For instance, James McClean and Harry Arter are in the twilight of their careers following flourishes in the Premier League during their pomp. Chiedozie Ogbene and Daryl Horgan are both hoping the tenancy is temporary after relegation from the Championship while Will Keane is utilising the stage to complete his first full season since injuries thwarted his progress at Manchester United.

Gavin Bazunu and his fellow teen Troy Parrott rest in a standalone subset.

Each are reckoned by their clubs, Manchester City and Tottenham respectively, to be capable of reaching Premier League standard, yet must demonstrate incremental progress on the loan circuit to justify that belief.

While Parrott’s goals and assists at MK Dons are starting to regain him the ground lost at Millwall last season, his goalkeeping contemporary’s trajectory is linear.

From a struggling League One club, Rochdale, last term to one perennially tipped for promotion this season, Portsmouth, consistency is the dominant theme of the scouting reports returned to Pep Guardiola’s goalkeeping coach Xabier Mancisidor.

It was sufficient for Bazunu to displace a Championship goalkeeper in Mark Travers in March and since fend off competition from a top-flight understudy in Caoimhín Kelleher at international level. He’s a certainty to make his eighth successive start for Ireland in Baku.

But he knows the pecking order will be influenced by developments of club level. It’s unrealistic for Ireland’s long-term No 1 goalkeeper to be operating in the third division, much as it’s inevitable Kelleher will tire of his watching brief behind Alisson.

For Bazunu to fulfil his stated ambition of becoming City’s first-choice stopper, he’ll probably have to mirror Kelleher’s current existence, relying on injury or suspension to avoid being confined to cameos in the FA and EFL Cups. It doesn’t sound like a ritual he’ll enjoy.

“That’s the difficult possible next step to my career,” he admits, foreseeing the sequence beyond the loan phase.

“I’ve not made a decision on that yet but my priority will always be to try and get as many games as I can. I don’t want to be sitting on the bench, rather than being out playing week in, week out.

“But if the best thing for me is to be in or around the squad learning every day and training with Xabi, if that’s my best opportunity to become Manchester City number one then I’d have to consider that in the future.”

When he does tackle that dilemma, he’ll be mindful of where his two rivals for the Ireland spot are in the club sphere.

Darren Randolph’s drift into the wilderness at West Ham United has seen him plummet from one of Kenny’s mainstays to being culled from the squad entirely.

“My reasoning for going out on loan is you get a chance every week to prove yourself and catch the eyes of the Ireland manager and his goalkeeping coach,” Bazunu adds. “It’s for them to see you continuing to back up performances.”

He has done just that, crowning his international ascent by saving Cristiano Ronaldo’s penalty in Faro last month.

It’s cutting out the type of errors which led to the spot-kick being awarded, overplaying inside his box, that will ensure his residency between the sticks prolongs.

“We had had a tactical debrief after the (Portugal) game,” he explains. “There were times where the pressure on us was high, and when you’re playing away to really top opposition sometimes you need to take a bit of pressure off by playing the pass longer or into areas where you have an overload.

“That’s the sort of thing where we’re learning and growing as a group. We’re trying to play this braver brand of football but also you have to get the balance between playing short and drawing on pressure versus creating too much pressure from yourself.”

Kenny is on course to have a fully-fit squad on the charter plane to Baku on Wednesday. Aaron Connolly was due to report into camp on Monday night while his Brighton team-mate Shane Duffy has been given compassionate time off due to the death at the weekend of his grandmother in Derry.