It’s been a long time since Alex McCarthy was able to enjoy first-team football and he appears no closer to finding it on the South Coast.
Southampton goalkeeper Alex McCarthy says he accepts the rotation policy employed by manager Claude Puel despite only making one appearance for the club this season, according to the club’s official website.
The 26-year-old, who was capped once by England, arrived at the South Coast club this summer after a series of errors led to him falling out of favour under Alan Pardew at Crystal Palace and usurped in the starting line up by Wayne Hennessey.
However, any hopes McCarthy may have had of increasing his game time at St Mary’s are yet to come to fruition, the reliability of Fraser Forster (below) restricting the former Reading keeper to a single appearance for his new club in the EFL Cup win against Crystal Palace.
Yet, the understudy shot-stopper says he has no qualms about his lack of game time, arguing that the rotation policy serves to increase competition within the squad.
“With the amount of games, the manager is going to have to rotate the squad. For the games he has done that, the lads that have come in have done well,” McCarthy told the club’s official website.
“It’s nice to know that everyone is fighting for their position here and everyone in the squad is capable of playing.
“It’s a good thing for the manager to have and I think that’s why our results have been so good lately.”
Southampton’s impressive form in the Europa League suggests the Saints will stretch well beyond their usual seasonal workload, although Forster started all three of their group games so far.
Therefore, McCarthy will be hopeful that he can double his tally of appearances under Puel (below) in Wednesday night’s EFL Cup clash with Sunderland.
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